Seems odd, in fact, it seems almost un-American, to see words like this:

"If the Bush administration brings forward a free-trade agreement with Colombia, I hope Congress will agree with me and say ‘Hell No,'."

Well it might seem odd until you understand who said them - Teamsters General President Jim Hoffa.

Hoffa followed those words with these:

"It's time to say yes to cracking down on China's currency manipulation, yes to food and product safety standards for imports, yes to keeping jobs in America instead of shipping them out of the country."

I can certainly understand and even agree with product safety regulation. But what has that to do with free trade?

Well, when you're a union, free trade is your enemy, because your priority isn't the consumer. The priority is your members and keeping their jobs here and their wages as high as you possibly can. If the consumers suffer because of that, well, you know - tough.

So given Hoffa's priority this sort of rhetoric shouldn't be surprising:

"Working men and women understand the damage done to them by these job-killing free-trade agreements," Hoffa said. "These deals are less about reducing trade barriers than they are about exploiting cheap labor and protecting investments of multinational corporations."

It is a populist and scaremongering appeal and it is right up the old union alley. However, if heated words from a union boss were all you had to worry about in this regard, you'd go "yeah, yeah" and get on with your life.

But in case you haven't noticed there's an election on. And, as most have figured out by now, we live in a special interest democracy. While Hoffa decries "multinational corporations" - a competing special interest - he's really making an appeal for his special interest to be protected.

Naturally we know to which party this constituency appeals. What Hoffa obviously wants is protectionist legislation which will make it too expensive, through duties and fees, for other countries and companies to import their cheaper goods into here, thus keeping consumer prices high and the jobs his members hold, safe.

Just as naturally, it is the consumer who gets screwed by such thinking and legislation. Instead of fixing the structural inefficiencies within certain industries which make them too pricey to compete on a level playing field of free trade, Hoffa would prefer keep those who can bring their goods to market more cheaply out of the country while having government protect the inefficiencies which pay so well here.

And I'm sure he'll find just the right politicians to make him the promises he hopes to hear in the very near future.

First published at QandO. Stop by and see us.