An Urban's Rural View

My Catholic grade school had barely taught our class the Eight Beatitudes ("Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," and the seven others starting with "blessed") when I heard a ninth on the playground:

"Blessed are they who do not expect much, for they shall not be disappointed."

It's a precocious pre-adolescent who can concoct such clever doggerel, but it's sad -- isn't it? -- for the young to be so pessimistic. The people I know who've achieved most expected much. They set ambitious goals for themselves, however long the odds. They persisted, often through failure after failure, until they succeeded.

The danger in pessimism is quitting too soon, or never trying. The danger in optimism is setting expectations so high you can't appreciate your partial successes -- and most peoples' successes are partial.

Which brings us to the free-trade agreement the U.S. and the European Union are about to negotiate. Ambitious, indeed, are the goals of this "transatlantic trade and investment partnership."

The world's two largest trading blocs, which already enjoy relatively free trade, seek to eliminate tariffs altogether. Even more importantly, they aim to slash non-tariff barriers. Government procurement rules and intellectual property rights are also on the table.

Enter Uri Dadush, former director of international trade at the World Bank, to play the role of playground philosopher.

Asked, on the website of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, if a deal will be reached, Dadush says: "I'm skeptical." (http://tiny.cc/…)

Behind each of the trade barriers on both sides, Dadush points out, lurk powerful vested interests who benefit from them. Another obstacle: President Barack Obama, who has embraced the talks, doesn't have trade-promotion authority. If Congress withholds it, the EU will be leery of making concessions to U.S. negotiators, knowing Congress will demand still further concessions.

Moreover, negotiators can only ax non-tariff barriers with the agreement of the regulators who imposed them, which will add more parties and complications to the talks.

Dadush salutes the high ambitions, which "can help propel negotiations forward." But, he says, "Everything that needs to be addressed is complicated and, for very different reasons, political forces on both sides are more divided than ever.

"Given all the obstacles, if a deal is reached it will almost certainly not happen before the end of Obama's term and will deliver a lot less than is promised. And there is a significant possibility that the deal won't happen at all. Much simpler trade deals than this have faltered and fallen apart in the past."

You can think of this as the equivalent of a tenth beatitude, or maybe a rephrasing of the ninth: "Blessed are they who expect much, as long as they're not deluding themselves."