December 04, 2010
It seems that way since the Post used the term 8 times, including in the headline, in an article that reported on the proposed U.S.-Korea trade pact. (The NYT only found the need to use it once in its article.)
We know that newspapers ordinarily like to save space, which makes it hard to understand why they insist on using the term “free-trade” when they discuss trade agreements which increase protection in many areas. Specifically, deals like the U.S.-Korea trade pact currently in the news enhance protection for patents, copyrights, and other forms of intellectual property claims. They also do not free all trade, leaving in place most of the barriers that protect highly paid professionals (e.g. doctors, lawyers, and economists) from their lower paid counterparts in other countries.
For this reason, these trade deals cannot be accurately called “free-trade” pacts. It is true that these deals generally include the term “free-trade” in their name, but that is not a reason for neutral media outlets to adopt this favorable characterization. In the 1980s President Reagan dubbed the controversial MX missile system, the “Peacemaker.” Media outlets did not follow his lead and begin referring to the missile with this term; there is similarly no reason why they should now be referring to trade agreements as “free-trade” agreements, when they clearly are not.
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