NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF criticizes the way Democratic candidates are

flirting with anti-trade positions by putting the emphasis on labor, environmental and human rights standards in international agreements...

All the complaints about third world sweatshops are true and then some: factories sometimes dump effluent into rivers or otherwise ravage the environment. But they have raised the standard of living in Singapore, South Korea and southern China, and they offer a leg up for people in countries like Cambodia...

In Asia, moreover, the factories tend to hire mostly girls and young women with few other job opportunities. The result has been to begin to give girls and women some status and power, some hint of social equality, some alternative to the sex industry.

Cambodia has a fair trade system and promotes itself as an enlightened garment producer. That's great. But if the U.S. tries to ban products from countries that don't meet international standards, jobs will be shifted from the most wretched areas to better-off nations like Malaysia or Mexico. Already there are very few factories in Africa or the poor countries of Asia, and if we raise the bar higher, there will be even fewer.

But as Ramesh Ponnuru argues,

The 2004 election is likely to offer America an important choice about global trade. It is, alas, a choice between different orders of badness. On one side, we have a president who has imposed tariffs on imports of steel, lumber, and Chinese lingerie. On the other, an opposition that largely agrees with these tariffs and objects only to the president's promises to free trade in the future...

the choice for free traders in this election should be clear. Only Bush and Lieberman hold out the hope of significant new trade deals. Under a Dean or a Gephardt, there is no chance of one. It is a strong argument for Bush. Given the way his own tariffs have clouded the issue, however, it may not be one he can make.

I'd vote for Lieberman, but I'm afraid he won't make it, so I'll probably vote for Bush.