When Pigs Fly

There is an old adage in which I find considerable wisdom: “When a pig flies, you don’t criticize it for not staying up very long.” I take the meaning of this saying to be that when someone who has a habit of making poor choices finally makes a moderately good one, you ought to praise the success, even if you feel he could have done more.

Well, a pig has flown. President Obama, who for his first two years ran the most anti-free-trade administration since the days of the Smoot-Hawley tariff, has managed to salvage a free-trade agreement (FTA) with South Korea, after stalling it for two years and being snubbed in Asia when he tried to strongarm a new deal. He managed a minor renegotiation, getting some relief from Korea’s environmental regulations on our cars and a slowing of our phase-out of tariffs on the Koreans’ trucks. He did this, however, at the cost of keeping Korea’s tariffs on our cars in place for five more years, and of an extra two years of Korean tariffs on American pork products. Hardly worth the wait on a deal that was already well negotiated in 2007.

But the good news is that Obama will finally let the deal proceed, and that 95% of all US and South Korean tariffs will be eliminated within five years. The deal also opens up greater trade in services, allowing (for example) more Korean banks in America and more American banks in Korea. That’s all good.

Now that Speaker Pelosi is finally history, chances are good that Speaker Boehner (“Blubbering Boehner” to his chums) will get the FTA with Korea through the House — and also the FTAs with Colombia and Panama, which have been languishing on the sidelines since Bush left office. It would be helpful if the pig could stay aloft long enough to help get these deals past Congress. So far, Obama hasn’t bothered to do that. He has shown a touching deference to the unions that oppose them, and that gave so much to his presidential campaign.

Yet it seems to be dawning on the exceptionally obtuse Obama that it may be far more useful to his 2012 reelection (gag!) campaign to have lower unemployment than to have higher union contributions poured into his campaign coffers. Perhaps the pig isn’t just flying; perhaps he has had an epiphany.

If for that we are hardly ecstatic, we can at least be satisfied.