Conservative Principles Now

Last week, Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke delivered a speech at the National Press Club titled “Back to Basics: A Blueprint for Exports-Driven Job Growth,” and remarked that “[President Obama’s National Export Initiative] will correct an economic blind spot that has allowed other countries to chip away at America’s international competitiveness.” The secretary also stated that “The United States is the most open major economy in the world…And that’s not going to change!”

Well, unfortunately, “empirical reality” tells us a different story. According to the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom, a data-driven study by The Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. economy has fallen from the top tier “free” category. Recent years’ economic policies have dramatically accelerated this decadency. Falling behind Canada, the United States is now a “mostly free” economy.

Indeed, our economic strength is being weakened by many “blind spots,” and our global competitiveness is losing ground. While many countries around the world continue on the path of increasing competitiveness and flexibility, the United States is, in many respects, moving in the opposite direction, simultaneously burdening its economy with increasing government spending, uncompetitive tax rates, and barriers to trade and investment that stifle entrepreneurship and dynamic growth.

Without causing further delays by fleshing out talking points, it is the time to reverse the slide in our economic freedom. A good stepping stone to that would be to restore our credibility in international trade by moving forward three currently-stalled free trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea.

The Heritage Foundation’s Steven Groves and Ben Lieberman are live at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference reporting from a conservative perspective. Follow their reports on The Foundry and at the Copenhagen Consequences Web site.

As the developed and developing worlds continue to spar here in Copenhagen over the terms of a comprehensive climate change treaty, a key United Nations official let the actual truth slip out as to what this conference is really about.

Janos Pasztor—the Director of U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon’s Climate Change Support Team—was characterizing the nature of the talks between the rich and poor nations of the world when he said the following: “This is not a climate-change negotiation … It’s about something much more fundamental. It’s about economic strength.” The nations at the negotiation, he added, “just have to slug it out.”

That is a remarkable statement, and may turn out to be the most truthful comment made during this entire two-week conference.

All 192 nations negotiating here in Copenhagen know Mr. Pasztor’s characterization to be true, but none say so. They speak of the United States’ “climate debt” owed to the rest of the world and that the U.S. and other developed nations owe “climate reparations” to the developing world to the tune of $100 billion a year.

Mr. Pasztor is correct—what is going on in Copenhagen this fortnight is anything but a climate change negotiation. It is an international political debate over global redistribution of wealth and control of energy resources, masquerading as an environmental conference.