Posted on 02/23/2015 9:57:23 AM PST by Theoria
President Barack Obama has called on Congress to grant him fast-track trade authority for his Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade agreement. The administration insists the authority, which would give Congress only an up-or-down vote on the agreement, is needed to get the best possible terms from its trade partners along the Pacific Rim.
During his 2008 presidential campaign, Obama promised to renegotiate and improve the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). But it now looks like what he really meant is to expand on that flawed trade model and extend it to other countries.
Twenty-one years after NAFTA and four years after Obama’s 2011 U.S.-South Korea Free Trade Agreement, there is abundant data documenting how this trade model has been disastrous for most U.S. businesses, farmers and workers.
Since the pacts were implemented, U.S. trade deficits, which drag down economic growth, have soared more than 430 percent with our free-trade partners. In the same period, they’ve declined 11 percent with countries that are not free-trade partners. Since fast-track trade authority was used to pass NAFTA and the U.S. entrance into the World Trade Organization, the overall annual U.S. trade deficit in goods has more than quadrupled, from $218 billion to $912 billion.
The United States now has an annual $177-billion trade deficit in goods with its 20 free-trade partners. Over the past decade, however, U.S. export growth to countries that are not free-trade partners exceeded the growth of free-trade partners by 24 percent.
Under NAFTA, small U.S. firms’ share of exports to Canada and Mexico has fallen. Had these businesses not lost their share of exports, they might instead be exporting $13.5 billion more each year to Mexico and Canada.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.reuters.com ...
Cloward & Piven.
It is not Free Trade, it is the dismantling of the American Economy, and they are almost finished, couple more nails in the coffin is all it will take to shut this country down.
When you don’t have enough serfs to rule over, on must create them. And what better way to create serfs than to take their livelyhoods, and pack them up and ship them overseas. And if that doesn’t create quite enough serfs, serfs from our impoverished socialist neighbors can be coaxed into moving in and displacing the native serfs.
We need to be raising import tariffs and restoring American industry.
Nothing enables big government like high unemployment.
my thoughts verbatim.
Tariffs are like a tourniquet to stop the bleeding of wealth.
I disagree. I think the lowering of the tariffs is one of the primary causes of the hemorrhaging. The wage differentials between countries are another primary cause. And that's what import tariffs can help offset.
? We agree so I don’t get your point, but we are on the same side. We need to stop the wealth form flowing out of the country and create it here thru manufacturing.
I shouldn’t have said I disagree. A tourniquet is a good thing. I just see the lowered tariffs as part of the cause of the wound, not just a band-aid or tourniquet.
Are you sure? You need to look into the special cases of what happens when one country has high unemployment. There is no guarantee that trade will benefit both countries.
Comparative Advantage says that when two people/parties/countries specialize and trade goods that total wealth is increased. But there is no guarantee that both countries will benefit, especially when one of them has high unemployment.
And that is limited to trading trade goods. WHen one country trades goods for the debt or equities of the other country. It's a wealth drain to the country that lets it happen to them.
You "sure know" that? How? Because some free trader told you? Have you studied history?
Chapter 6 The deliberately forgotten history of Trade"
Excerpts of the rest of the chapters of the book "Why Free Trade doesn't work"
History of tariffs in the U.S.
Our founding fathers viewed import tariffs as a tax on foreigners wanting to do business in our market. Right now, the import tariff on average is only about 1%. Far less than the taxes paid by a domestic producer. So we are actually incenting off-shoring. Imports should at least be burdened with the same tax load as domestic producers, and I think imports should bear the total cost of supporting the unemployed. And that's the minimum tariffs that should be appllied.
Where did the railroads right of way come from?
Not the Indians.
I guess I now see where the appeal of Pat Buchanan came from. I thought protectionism among conservatives went the way of the dinosaur. The question is how is protecting producers are the expense of consumers fair?
It's not about producers vs consumers. It's about American jobs. When consumers lose their jobs they cease to be consumers.
Not protecting American industries hurts consumers big time. Look at how many former consumers are now on food stamps. They can't afford to buy the cheap imports.
You pay for cheap imports twice. When you buy the import and when you pay for the Americans that are now idle.
If we were at full Employment, it would make sense to make use of cheap overseas labor. But we are not.
How is it fair to allow foreign producers to pay a fraction in taxes of what domestic producers have to pay? How is it fair to consumers to see their jobs dissappear overseas?
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