Hear, hear

ANDRÉS MARTINEZ: The right time to go it alone

President Bush knows of one thing he can do to alleviate global poverty, improve the U.S. image overseas, help fight the root causes of terrorism and — wait, there's more — save U.S. consumers a bundle. Do it already, you say. He will, Bush says, but only "as other nations do the same."

Why wait? At issue is the elimination of tariffs and farm subsidies that distort international trade, and it was in addressing the United Nations on Wednesday that Bush again pledged to do what "is key to overcoming poverty in the world's poorest nations" — but, alas, only if other rich countries do the same. He'd made an equally empty but bold-sounding offer at the Group of 8 rich countries' meeting in July.

It's absurd. Bush didn't wait for France to sign off on the invasion of Iraq; he certainly shouldn't wait for France to sign off on a dismantling of U.S. farm subsidies that give domestic cotton, rice, sugar and other crops an unfair leg up in global competition. Waiting around for Europe and Japan to accept trade liberalization in agricultural goods could be a decades-long exercise. Besides, it is an abdication of American leadership.

Expanding trade around the world, Bush rightly said Wednesday, "would strike a blow against the terrorists who feed on anger and resentment." By uncharacteristically refusing to act unilaterally on this one, the Bush administration is not only undermining the global economy, it's refusing to shore up U.S. national security.