Cheney Preview: Liberal Trade More Effective Than Sanctions

ByJohn S. McClenahen The political and economic views of Richard Cheney, the presumptive GOP vice presidential candidate, former Republican congressman from Wyoming, and U.S. secretary of defense, will become clearer during this week's Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. But this much is already clear: Cheney is for liberal trade and investment and against unilateral economic sanctions. "Investment and trade often can do more to open up a society and create opportunity for a society's citizens than reams of diplomatic cables from our State Dept.," Cheney writes in Economic Casualties, a 1999 book published by the Cato Institute, a libertarian Washington-based think tank. And he says, "When we pursue [unilateral economic sanctions], the United States ends up in a position of adopting and advocating a policy that is almost guaranteed to be ineffective."