The Scramble for America

Patrick J. Buchanan
October 8, 2007, 9:00 am

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What is it that distinguishes Bush
Republicanism from the Coolidge, Taft, Eisenhower and
Reagan varieties? Four major issues come to mind.

Bush is a

"Big Government conservative" who repudiated the
"government-is-the-problem" philosophy of Reagan.
His

No Child Left Behind program, doubling the size of
the

Department of Education, and his vast expansion of
Medicare to cover

prescription drugs so testify.

Second, Bush believes in Wilsonian
interventionism, including the use of military force, to
advance a

"global democratic revolution"
and

"end tyranny on earth."

Third, Bush believes
in open borders, amnesty and

"a path to citizenship"
for

12 million to 20 million illegal aliens, and
smoothing the way for untold millions more to come and
"do the work

Americans will not do."

Fourth, Bush is a

NAFTA-CAFTA man who believes in throwing America`s
doors open to

goods from all over the world, regardless of the
protectionist practices of our trade partners. To Bush,
free trade is an article of faith and faithful
observance its own reward.

For seven years now, consistent with
these beliefs, Bush has crafted national policy to
conform to his convictions. Thus, any verdict on the
Bush presidency must also render judgment upon his
philosophy.

With his own and his party`s approval at
the lowest levels since Watergate, one may conclude then
that America is not only rejecting Bush the man and his
record, but the philosophy behind both.

This should be a matter of grave concern
to a Republican Party that has lately embraced all four
pillars of the Bush-Republican philosophy.

For consider the fruits.

Interventionism gave us

Iraq, the

worst strategic blunder in U.S. history. Big
Government conservatism wiped out the surplus, fattened
the federal bureaucracy and enlarged its share of GDP,
and destroyed the Republican reputation as America`s
bastion of fiscal prudence.

The
Bush immigration philosophy was repudiated by Middle
America, which

rose in righteous wrath against his amnesty plan and
demanded he enforce the law and

secure the border. Americans are unreconciled to the
idea that the America they grew up in will be morphed
into some mammoth multicultural Mall of Mankind.

Now, the returns have come in from the
Bush policy of free-trade globalism. According to a lead
story in The Wall Street Journal—whose editorial
page still champions Iraq, the Bush Doctrine, open
borders, NAFTA-CAFTA and the WTO—Republicans, by two to
one, believe free trade has done more harm than good to
America.

"With voters provoked for years by
such figures as Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot,"
writes the Journal`s John Harwood, citing Romney
adviser and former Rep. Vin Weber, "there`s been a
steady erosion in Republican support for free trade."
[Republicans
Grow Skeptical On Free Trade – WSJ.com, October 4,
2007 ]

While one appreciates Harwood`s
compliment, it is undeserved. What killed the free-trade
consensus in the GOP was not provocateurs, but proven
failure.

Since 2002, America has run five
consecutive world record trade deficits. Three million
manufacturing jobs have disappeared. The euro has almost
doubled in value against the dollar. The Canadian dollar
has reached parity. Plants have been shutting down
across this country for years. The wages of Middle
Americans have stagnated. The trade deficit with China
last year reached $233 billion, a world record between
any two nations.

Where Alexander Hamilton`s economic
patriotism, pursued by Washington, Madison, Clay,
Jackson, Lincoln, McKinley, T.R. and Coolidge, created
the greatest manufacturing power the world had ever
seen, producing 42 percent of all of the world`s goods
when Silent Cal went home, America`s industrial plant
has been ravaged by free trade.

And we are only beginning to see the
damage done by the "trade-deficits-don`t-matter!"
Republicans.

The trade deficits America has run up in
recent decades have helped give rival nations $5
trillion in cash reserves. They have now begun to
transfer this enormous cash hoard into sovereign wealth
funds—to buy up America.

China, with currency reserves estimated
at $1.3 trillion, used petty cash—one-fourth of 1
percent of its cash pile in May—to buy a 10 percent
interest in Blackstone, America`s second largest private
equity firm.

Huawei Technologies, a

firm linked to the Chinese military, now seeks a
merger with 3Com, a company that provides the Pentagon
and U.S. Army with intrusion detection equipment to keep
hackers out. In July,

Chinese military hackers were discovered trying to
break into a computer system close to

Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Treasury should veto Huawei`s bid, even
if

Goldman Sachs, which claims one alumnus as treasury
secretary and another as White House chief of staff, has
been greasing the deal. Yet this is not the end—this is
only the first of the foreign raids on vital U.S.
assets.

At the

1884 Congress of Berlin that carved up the
continent,

"The Scramble for Africa" began. The Scramble
for America, thanks to our trillions in borrowing to
finance consumption of foreign goods, is about to begin.
Because of the free-trade folly of this generation,

foreigners, not all of them friendly, are about to
buy up our inheritance. They are about to buy up
America.