* The number of full-time jobs has increased by 13.4 percent since 1991. The share of the labor force that works part-time because of an inability to find a full-time job is less than 3 percent. * As of July 2000, the unemployment rate had hovered within one-tenth of a point from 4 percent for almost a year--the lowest rate in 30 years.3 * The stellar record of growth has continued in the United States at the end of the decade as well: Between 1998 and 1999 alone, total employment increased by 2 million.4
To be sure, many more policymakers today acknowledge the benefits of free trade than when Congress passed the Tariff Act of 1930 (the Smoot-Hawley Act). The devastation wrought by these protectionist tariffs led successive U.S. administrations to support free trade after World War II. Their grand vision of a world comprised of nations at peace who traded freely among themselves for the prosperity of all has animated U.S. foreign policy and invigorated efforts to facilitate the opening of markets in every region.
A growing number of countries continue to share the benefits of America's emphasis on trade. As noted in a recent report by the International Financial Institution Advisory Commission chaired by Allan H. Meltzer, a former member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers and Professor of Political Economy at Carnegie Mellon University:
The Congress, successive administrations, and the American public can be proud of these achievements. The United States has been the leader in maintaining peace and stability, promoting democracy and the rule of law, reducing trade barriers, and establishing a transnational financial system. Americans and their allies have willingly provided the manpower and money to make many of these achievements possible. The benefits have been widely shared by the citizens of developed and developing countries.
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