Organized labor and the far right, each for their own reasons, would like to pull up the drawbridge and create an America that looks inward rather than outward. That strategy didn't work in the 1930s and it certainly isn't going to work in 2000. Back then, instead of protecting national assets, it yielded millions of dead in wars that were fought ultimately over the distribution of resources. It is still somewhat politically incorrect to suggest, in liberal circles, that free markets are better at distributing the world's resources than the protectionist approaches that Sen. Wellstone promotes. But it's true nonetheless.
Markets tend to operate in spite of differences in ideology.
Although this drives both the left and right crazy, it makes sense in a world shrunk by technology. Trading with China is a fait accompli, but it is one-sided. Once normal trade relations are established on a permanent basis, we will begin to even the score and in doing so will have far more impact on modern China than Jesse Helms's posturing about the communist menace. Human rights are important and ought not to be ignored. But they shouldn't cloud sound economic policy, as Sen.