As this is from the foreign press it is good to see American politics / policies from a different vantage point. It does point out one of our exports is knowledge. The author comes from a "free trade" point of view that sounds very American. I think the point here is that he fails to understand that his own Germany places barriers to trade from the US (Farm subsidies for one) so in essence his complaints of our system wanting to place requirements or barriers is no different than his country has been doing. As long as we export "rose colored" ideas, we will get back what we sow. In this case, the article was interesting from only the view it came from outside our country. The sad thing is that this article may as well been ... More »

The story has interesting and informative points. However, it messes with history when it says "free trade" has been uniformly accepted, and fails to define free trade and what is antithetical to freedom within the policies. Clinton abandoned progressives and pushed NAFTA through in order to get business contributions to Democratic party campaign coffers. He thus became the best republican president in history. The article fails to note the devastating effects of the very corporate oriented NAFTA agreements upon third world agriculture, upon labor in all countries, and upon the increasing disparity in income between rich and poor. Hillary's move at this point may only be pandering to progressives in her own party to try to get ... More »