Why Britain Should Join NAFTA.

• Author: Gramm, Phil
• Position: Brief Article

Unfortunately, the world is evolving not toward free trade, but toward regional trading blocs that are becoming more protectionist. And nowhere is that more true than in the European Union.

I am "40 miles from home" in presuming to advise Britain on its trade policy and its relations with Europe, but you cannot have one currency in the end without having one nation. Clearly, when making a decision about monetary union, it is impossible to make an economic system of monetary union work without having political union.

Common currency means common country. My concern is not with British sovereignty decisions. Those are decisions that the British people have to make. But choosing a common currency area means choosing a country, and choosing a country means choosing values. Essentially, Britain is choosing a political and an economic philosophy.

As an American, I am not concerned about a rival super-state across the Atlantic Ocean. World power isn't what it is cracked up to be. In fact, the most interesting thing about power in America is its limits. So if we have someone who wants to take up that burden and exercise it, I don't feel threatened. What really concerns me is that I see the world breaking into regions, and the EU is becoming more and more protectionist. The most recent members of the EU actually had to raise their tariffs in order to join.

Predictably, critics snort that all this is just right-wing politics. One colorful opponent condemned my vision of the world where goods and services flow freely to the benefit of both producers and consumers as "very Right-wing even by American standards" Britain in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), he predicted, would result in the British Isles becoming a "satellite of America at the mercy of American pressure groups and their congressional stooges."

I had not seen this criticism before it was already answered, quite persuasively I thought, by Winston S. Churchill, the former member of Parliament and grandson of a legend. These fears, he wrote, "are belied by reality."

"Is the Mexican legislature subordinate to the Congress of the United States? Is Canada under relentless pressure to join the almighty U.S. dollar? Are these two fiercely independent nations, by fact of their membership of NAFTA -- a voluntary treaty, from which they can withdraw at any...