Who's dumping on American consumers?

Steve Chapman writes,

Do you like shrimp but wish it cost more? Need some bedroom furniture but hate getting a good deal on it? If so, you're very different from most Americans. You are, however, one of the few people who can rejoice in our national trade policies.

Politicians know that consumers in this country are more than happy to buy foreign goods if the quality is sufficient and the price is right. They also know that explicit efforts to shut out imports are usually political fool's gold, more likely to bring defeat than victory at the polls...

A spokeswoman for the Commerce Department's International Trade Administration, when asked how many anti-dumping orders are currently in effect, responds as though I've invited her to count all the cactuses in Arizona. She can't come up with a tally on short notice but says the number is "in the hundreds, maybe more than hundreds." And that's not including all the ones that are pending.

For an administration that boasts of its devotion to tax cuts, these efforts represent an unnoticed and unwarranted tax increase, which will come out of the pockets of American manufacturers, retailers and consumers. It's also a violation of President Bush's supposed faith in free trade, which he touts as a contrast to Democrats who believe that, in his words, "the solution to jobs uncertainty is to isolate America from the world."

Emphasis mine. (via Daniel Drezner).