Quote Of The Day

"When trade flares up as a political issue — as it is likely to do in the presidential campaign this year — one aspect of the debate is almost always neglected. There is a fierce competition among foreign countries to sell their products here, in the United States, the largest commercial market in the world. Moreover, by opening up our market to Muslim countries, we could not only help American consumers, but also serve a larger strategic goal: that of boosting the economies which now produce large pools of unemployed, embittered youth. We can make trade an effective weapon against terrorism. Our tariff regime puts many nations in the Middle East, whose young people are susceptible to the sirens of Islamic fundamentalism, at an unintended disadvantage. This works against our efforts to stamp out jihadism. Fortunately, the problem is easy to fix. The U.S. buys about a fifth of all the goods and services traded world-wide — importing $2.63 trillion worth of the world's products last year alone. Socks come in from the Caribbean, towels from Pakistan, cheese from France, and oil from Saudi Arabia. But apart from oil, very little comes from the Muslim world. The 30 majority-Muslim states of the greater Middle East, from Morocco through Egypt to Pakistan and Central Asia, account for about 10% of the world's population. They provide about 1% of our manufactured imports, and an even smaller fraction of our farm imports." — Edward Gresser and Marc Dunkelman of the moderate-liberal Democratic Leadership Council