WASHINGTON -- On Bob Zoellick's office wall hangs a portrait of George McClellan, the Union general who was Napoleonic in self-regard but not in martial spirit and who is remembered primarily for his reluctance to fight. ``I asked for a good portrait of a Civil War general,'' says Zoellick. ``I should have asked for a portrait of a good general.''
Zoellick, the most important government official most voters have never heard of, holds a job that is one of the underestimated stakes in this presidential election. John Kerry, who is given to complaining that questions about his policies impugn his patriotism, has said smarmily that as president he will ``appoint a U.S. trade representative who is an American patriot.'' Zoellick, the man Kerry slandered, is President Bush's trade representative, and on one day last month in Geneva he did more discernable good for his country than Kerry has done in 20 years in the Senate.
On July 31 the string of setbacks in trade liberalization that began in Seattle in 1999 -- five years of growth stolen from the world -- ended. The World Trade Organization reached an agreement that the industrialized countries -- especially the United States, members of the European Union and Japan -- will eliminate their agriculture export subsidies, which inhibit and distort trade, and will make ``substantial reductions'' in domestic farm supports, starting with a 20 percent cut. Poor countries will make similar cuts. Details, wherein lurks the devil, to follow.
This is not altruism on the part of the developed nations. It is better than that. It is economic rationality.
The publics of those nations will reduce their payments to their own farmers. Those farmers will benefit from an increased velocity of trade in a more open international system. For poorer countries -- up to 45 of them are net food importers -- the elimination of the rich nation's export subsidies may mean increased food costs, at least for a while. But increased food prices in the importing countries will be incentives for production by their farmers. And to the extent that those farmers cannot compete with imports, they will be turned toward work in other fields -- their countries' comparative advantages.