July 16, 2013
If Churchill Could See Us Now
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Whenever we go into political drift as a country, optimists often quote Winston Churchill’s line that
Americans will always do the right thing, after they’ve “exhausted all other possibilities.” I don’t
think that’s true anymore. Churchill never met the Tea Party, and he certainly never met today’s
House Republicans, a group so narrow-minded and disinterested in governing — and the necessary
compromises that go with it — that they’re ready to kill an immigration bill that is manifestly in the
country’s economic, social and strategic interests.
Proving Churchill at least half-right, we have foolishly ignored immigration reform for years. But
today, finally, we’ve found a coalition of Senate Democrats and 14 Senate Republicans who have
courageously compromised on a bill that, though not perfect — it still spends too much on border
defense — opens more opportunity for the high- and low-skilled immigrants we need to thrive and
gives those already here illegally a legitimate pathway to citizenship. Yet it appears that brain-dead
House Republicans and their pusillanimous leadership are not inclined to do the right thing and
pass a similar bill. We’ve exhausted all other possibilities, and we’re still stuck. That is how a great
country becomes un-great.
Many House Republicans are resistant to a bill because they come from gerrymandered districts
dominated by older white people who have a knee-jerk resistance to immigration reform — borne
of fears of job-loss to illegal immigrants and a broader anxiety about the changing color and
demographics in America. And rather than trying to defuse those fears by putting the immigration
bill into the larger context in which it belongs, a critical mass of House Republicans seems
committed to fanning them.
What world are we living in today? Countries that don’t start every day by asking that question do
not thrive in the long run. We are living in a world with at least five competing market platforms:
North America, the European Union, South America, Greater China and East Asia. We have
already derived great economic benefit through the North American Free Trade Agreement, or
Nafta. And, if we were thinking strategically, one of our top foreign policy priorities would be to
further integrate North America.
I wonder how many Americans know that we sell twice as many exports to Mexico as to China, and
we export more than twice as much to Mexico and Canada as to the European Union and three
times as much as we do to East Asia. I wonder how many Americans know that out of every $1 of
Mexican exports to the U.S., 40 cents comes from materials and parts made in the U.S. By
comparison, out of every $1 of Chinese exports to the world, just 4 cents comes from products
made in the U.S., according the National Bureau of Economic Research. And, with the discovery of
natural gas in America leading to more manufacturing returning to this country, and the prospect
of pending energy reform in Mexico, there is an opportunity to create the lowest-cost, clean-energy
manufacturing platform in the world, with mutually beneficial supply chains crisscrossing the
continent.
To enhance such a win-win growth strategy that would incentivize more Mexicans to stay home, we
should be investing in a major expansion of transportation corridors to facilitate truck, intermodal
(including shipping and high-speed rail) and human traffic in a much more efficient and legal
fashion. In short, we’d start with where we want and need North America to go, so we can thrive
even more, and then forge a border and immigration policy with both Mexico and Canada to
achieve that. We’re doing just the opposite — starting with a fear-fence and not thinking
strategically at all.
“Instead of lowering the barriers to create a modern border and a more competitive and secure
continent, the Republicans propose to deal with illegal migration by doubling our border patrol to
over 40,000, which is 10 times more than it was before Nafta, at an additional cost of more than
$40 billion,” notes Robert Pastor, founder of the Center for North American Studies at American
University, and author of “The North American Idea: A Vision of a Continental Future.”
“The Republicans claim they are interested in free markets, but instead of trying to flatten the
continent, they are fracturing it,” added Pastor. “Instead of eliminating the huge rules of origin tax
and creating a common external tariff and a seamless continental market, they want to wall off our
neighbors.”
By focusing exclusively on fences, we will not stop undocumented immigration — because 40
percent of illegal residents are people who overstayed their visas — but we will fail to invest in the
infrastructure that represents a critical foundation for our future. More important, says Pastor, we
will also be telling “the Mexicans and the Canadians that we view them as threats, not as partners.”
The whole approach is shortsighted, does not play to our strengths, increases the deficit and
ignores where the world is going and how America can best compete and lead within it. Churchill
would be aghast.
MORE IN OPINION (3 OF 21 ARTICLES)