Keep economy open, U.S. urged

A pair of experts — one from the United States and one from Australia — on Tuesday urged the U.S. to resist the temptation of protectionism as a way to help the troubled U.S. economy.

John Winston Howard, prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007, and U.S. Commerce Under Secretary for International Trade Christopher A. Padilla stressed that economic openness is the better path.

"The worst possible thing that America could do or Australia could do or Europe could do at the present time is to turn back in on ourselves and become more protectionist," Howard told a crowd of about 850 people at Zions Bank's seventh annual International Trade and Business Conference.

"The world cries aloud in 2008 for a reaffirmation of the view that protection is something of the past, because if the world goes back into protection, we will aggravate some of the difficulties that are now being faced," Howard said. "That will present very significant challenges and very significant difficulties for all of us."

Padilla, who spoke earlier in the day, said protectionism provides a false sense of security and stems from "a defeatist belief that America cannot compete." The U.S. instead needs to pass more free trade agreements — it has 14 now — forge investment treaties and participate in the World Trade Organization, he said.

"Great nations know what they believe," he said, "and we believe that openness makes America different, dynamic and strong."

Howard's suggestion of maintaining an open U.S. economy was among his four "rules of the road" for Western, developed countries, and he said it could help the U.S. during economically troubled times.

"Whenever the American economy gets into trouble, you can always be certain that it's sufficiently flexible. and relatively speaking, unregulated, so that it can recover from the difficulty and perform its way out of economic challenge and economic adversity very, very rapidly," he said.

The other rules include not resorting to overregulation during adversity, balancing budgets or at least narrowing deficits, and maintaining faith in the capacity of technology and science to solve most problems.

Howard said he is a "passionate believer" in globalization. "I hope that not only here in the United States, but in my own country and in other nations around the world, that the doubters and the naysayers who always arise and always become prominent in a time of some economic adversity do not carry the day in relation to globalization," he said.