Are Fair Trade Policies "Extreme?" Is Clinton Ready For Trump On Trade?
Published on
Thursday, April 28, 2016
by
Campaign for America's Future Blog
Are Fair Trade Policies "Extreme?" Is Clinton Ready For Trump On Trade?
by
Dave Johnson
A protest against the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement aimed at the
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman. (Photo: AP)
Is it really "extreme" to think we should have fair trade policies?
The New York Times on Tuesday published a story by Nelson D. Schwartz and
Quoctrung Bui, "Where Jobs Are Squeezed by Chinese Trade, Voters Seek
Extremes," reporting that, "research to be unveiled this week by four
leading academic economists suggests that the damage to manufacturing jobs
from a sharp acceleration in globalization since the turn of the century has
contributed heavily to the nation's bitter political divide."
By "sharp acceleration in globalization since the turn of the century" they
mean millions and millions of manufacturing jobs, and more than 60,000
factories, all moved to China since 2000 to take advantage of China's
non-democracy that allows exploitation of workers and the environment. (But
China doesn't really "trade" with us by buying things, resulting in a record
$365.7 billion trade deficit with China just last year.)
They go on:
Cross-referencing congressional voting records and district-by-district
patterns of job losses and other economic trends between 2002 and 2010, the
researchers found that areas hardest hit by trade shocks were much more
likely to move to the far right or the far left politically.
"It's not about incumbents changing their positions," said David Autor, an
influential scholar of labor economics and trade at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and one of the paper's authors. "It's about the
replacement of moderates with more ideological successors."
Mr. Autor added: "In retrospect, whether it's Trump or Sanders, we should
have seen in it coming. The China shock isn't the sole factor, but it is
something of a missing link."
So Sanders, who basically advocates returning to policies that are not even
as "left" as those that were dominant in the Eisenhower era, is now
considered by these reporters to be "extreme" and "the far left"? In some
minds, apparently, the answer is yes.
There's Trade And Then There's "Trade"
There is trade and then there's "trade." Trade is the exchange of goods and
services across borders. People who live in certain climates and can grow
bananas can also have cars, and people who make cars can have bananas. Both
sides benefit - as long as the value of the banana going one way and the
value of cars going the other way line up. In other words, with actual trade
we buy things from other countries and they buy things from us.
In our country's current trade regime, however, "trade" is used as a
justification and enabler for closing American factories and moving American
jobs to places where people are paid less and the environment is not
protected, and bringing the same goods that used to be made here back here
and selling them in the same outlets. The people who used to employ those
American workers can then pocket the wage and environmental-protection-cost
differential; the country gets a massive trade deficit.
The Times article quotes corporate economists who, "like most economists,"
explain that "we all" benefit because "lower prices" result when things are
made somewhere else by people who are paid almost nothing. (Apparently
moving our jobs out of the country is good for us.) It does not address the
inequality and economywide worker wage stagnation that has resulted from
these policies. It ignores that our country has had enormous, humongous
trade deficits every single year since "free trade" ideology became dominant
in elite thinking. Oh well.
This is the reason for the disconnect in American thinking about trade.
Elites tell us "free trade" is good but voters can see and feel that what
this country has actually been doing has been bad for them. Americans like
the idea of actual trade, but they hate our country's trade deals. They are
rational; they see that the "trade" deals have really been about moving jobs
to benefit corporate elites and they see and feel the terrible results of
this all around them.
What About Clinton?
Note that the story specifically names Sanders as on the "far left," while
candidate Hillary Clinton also claims to oppose the trade deals that shipped
jobs and the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), also claims to be as
"progressive" as Sanders, and has taken many of the same positions on most
issues as Sanders. The reporters apparently simply do not believe her.
There's that old credibility problem cropping up in the strangest places.
This exposes what will likely be one of Clinton's biggest problems in the
coming election if she and Trump are the nominees. As the Times story notes,
Trump has built his campaign partly on a popular and resonating message
about how our trade deals have hurt the country. Clinton says she opposes
TPP and other bad trade deals, but no one believes her.
This election will be at least partly, if not mostly, about trade. The
consequences of decades of moving jobs out of the country are coming home to
roost. People are fed up. This means Clinton needs to toughen up her trade
policies - and mean it. She should start by calling on President Obama not
to submit TPP to Congress, The public gets it, Clinton better get it, too.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License.
Dave Johnson
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Are Fair Trade Policies "Extreme?" Is Clinton Ready For Trump On Trade?
Published on
Thursday, April 28, 2016
by
Campaign for America's Future Blog
Are Fair Trade Policies "Extreme?" Is Clinton Ready For Trump On Trade?
by
Dave Johnson
. 6 Comments
.
. A protest against the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement
aimed at the U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman. (Photo: AP)
. Is it really "extreme" to think we should have fair trade policies?
. The New York Times on Tuesday published a story by Nelson D.
Schwartz and Quoctrung Bui, "Where Jobs Are Squeezed by Chinese Trade,
Voters Seek Extremes," reporting that, "research to be unveiled this week by
four leading academic economists suggests that the damage to manufacturing
jobs from a sharp acceleration in globalization since the turn of the
century has contributed heavily to the nation's bitter political divide."
. By "sharp acceleration in globalization since the turn of the
century" they mean millions and millions of manufacturing jobs, and more
than 60,000 factories, all moved to China since 2000 to take advantage of
China's non-democracy that allows exploitation of workers and the
environment. (But China doesn't really "trade" with us by buying things,
resulting in a record $365.7 billion trade deficit with China just last
year.)
. They go on:
Cross-referencing congressional voting records and district-by-district
patterns of job losses and other economic trends between 2002 and 2010, the
researchers found that areas hardest hit by trade shocks were much more
likely to move to the far right or the far left politically.
"It's not about incumbents changing their positions," said David Autor, an
influential scholar of labor economics and trade at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology and one of the paper's authors. "It's about the
replacement of moderates with more ideological successors."
Mr. Autor added: "In retrospect, whether it's Trump or Sanders, we should
have seen in it coming. The China shock isn't the sole factor, but it is
something of a missing link."
So Sanders, who basically advocates returning to policies that are not even
as "left" as those that were dominant in the Eisenhower era, is now
considered by these reporters to be "extreme" and "the far left"? In some
minds, apparently, the answer is yes.
https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/cdspring16-articlehttps://secure.
actblue.com/contribute/page/cdspring16-article
There's Trade And Then There's "Trade"
There is trade and then there's "trade." Trade is the exchange of goods and
services across borders. People who live in certain climates and can grow
bananas can also have cars, and people who make cars can have bananas. Both
sides benefit - as long as the value of the banana going one way and the
value of cars going the other way line up. In other words, with actual trade
we buy things from other countries and they buy things from us.
In our country's current trade regime, however, "trade" is used as a
justification and enabler for closing American factories and moving American
jobs to places where people are paid less and the environment is not
protected, and bringing the same goods that used to be made here back here
and selling them in the same outlets. The people who used to employ those
American workers can then pocket the wage and environmental-protection-cost
differential; the country gets a massive trade deficit.
The Times article quotes corporate economists who, "like most economists,"
explain that "we all" benefit because "lower prices" result when things are
made somewhere else by people who are paid almost nothing. (Apparently
moving our jobs out of the country is good for us.) It does not address the
inequality and economywide worker wage stagnation that has resulted from
these policies. It ignores that our country has had enormous, humongous
trade deficits every single year since "free trade" ideology became dominant
in elite thinking. Oh well.
This is the reason for the disconnect in American thinking about trade.
Elites tell us "free trade" is good but voters can see and feel that what
this country has actually been doing has been bad for them. Americans like
the idea of actual trade, but they hate our country's trade deals. They are
rational; they see that the "trade" deals have really been about moving jobs
to benefit corporate elites and they see and feel the terrible results of
this all around them.
What About Clinton?
Note that the story specifically names Sanders as on the "far left," while
candidate Hillary Clinton also claims to oppose the trade deals that shipped
jobs and the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), also claims to be as
"progressive" as Sanders, and has taken many of the same positions on most
issues as Sanders. The reporters apparently simply do not believe her.
There's that old credibility problem cropping up in the strangest places.
This exposes what will likely be one of Clinton's biggest problems in the
coming election if she and Trump are the nominees. As the Times story notes,
Trump has built his campaign partly on a popular and resonating message
about how our trade deals have hurt the country. Clinton says she opposes
TPP and other bad trade deals, but no one believes her.
This election will be at least partly, if not mostly, about trade. The
consequences of decades of moving jobs out of the country are coming home to
roost. People are fed up. This means Clinton needs to toughen up her trade
policies - and mean it. She should start by calling on President Obama not
to submit TPP to Congress, The public gets it, Clinton better get it, too.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0
License.
