Not to get him in trouble with his boss, but U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk has been sounding like a free trader lately. I’m beginning to think Ambassador Kirk consumes the analyses we produce over here at the Cato Institute’s Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies. Well, let me rephrase: that he consumes the meat of our analyses, but still hides the vegetables under the picked-over potatoes.

Still, that’s pretty commendable for a Washington policymaker.

Just the other day, Ambassador Kirk lamented how policymakers do a poor job selling trade agreements to a skeptical public. Inside U.S. Trade [$] paraphrased Kirk as saying:

[P]oliticians must ‘talk about trade differently’ and demonstrate how trade policy is directly responsible for sustaining economic growth and creating jobs. If the focus is only on how trade deals will improve supply chains for businesses, for instance, that is not enough to build the base for support for trade deals.

That is a sound criticism. The typical, mercantilist arguments that tout the benefits of exports and rationalize imports as necessary evils are foolish and self-defeating—particularly in a country that will run trade deficits into the distant future as its economy continues to grow and attract greater amounts of foreign investment. The freedom to engage in commerce with whom and how one chooses, and the impact of import competition are the real benefits of freer trade.

Like some others in town, we at Cato advocate free trade. But unlike most, we advocate free trade here in the United States—not just over there in foreign countries. Free trade requires more than getting other governments to eliminate their barriers to U.S. exports; it requires getting the U.S. government to eliminate its barriers to U.S. imports from abroad. The latter is the real objective of free trade advocacy and the well-spring of most of its benefits.

But the economic benefits of imports rarely make the Washington “free trade advocate’s” Top-10 list of talking points, nor do they officially register in the minds of trade negotiators, whose chief aims are to secure for their exporters the greatest possible access to foreign markets, while simultaneously conceding to foreigners as little access as possible to the domestic market. “Import” is a four-letter word in the Washington trade policy community.

That’s why Ambassador Kirk’s recent comments have me thinking: epiphany?

In a statement responding to the WTO Appellate Body ruling last week that China’s export restrictions on nine raw materials were not in conformity with that country’s WTO commitments, Ambassador Kirk made the point that U.S. firms that use those raw materials will be better able to compete once those restrictions are lifted.

Today’s decision ensures that core manufacturing industries in this country can get the materials they need to produce and compete on a level playing field.

The USTR had previously made the following point:

These raw material inputs are used to make many processed products in a number of primary manufacturing industries, including steel, aluminum and various chemical industries. These products, in turn become essential components in even more numerous downstream products.

Technically, Ambassador Kirk is not engaging in profanity—he doesn’t use the word import. But his argument against Chinese export restrictions is just as applicable to U.S. import restrictions. Removing restrictions—whether the export variety imposed by foreign governments or the import variety imposed by our own—reduces input prices, lowers domestic production costs, enables more competitive final-goods pricing and, thus, greater profits for U.S.-based producers.

So let’s take Ambassador Kirk’s sound logic and see if it might apply elsewhere in the realm of U.S. trade policy. If the U.S. government thought it worthwhile to take China to the WTO over the restrictions it imposes on raw material exports because those restrictions hurt U.S. producers, then why does the same U.S. government impose its own restrictions on imports of some of the very same raw materials? That’s right. The United States maintains antidumping duties on magnesium, silicon metal, and coke (all raw materials subject to Chinese export restrictions).

If Ambassador Kirk ate the vegetables as well as the meat of Cato’s trade policy analyses, he would recognize that his logic provides a compelling case for antidumping reforms, such as one requiring the administering authorities to consider the economic impact of antidumping measures on producers in downstream industries, such as magnesium-cast automobile parts producers, manufacturers of silicones used in solar panels, and even steel producers, who require coke for their blast furnaces.

We will know that the ambassador has eaten his free-trade vegetables when he starts sounding like former USTR Robert Zoellick who once hoped for the Doha Round of trade negotiations that it would “[T]urn every corner store in America into a duty-free shop.”

Is the U.S. Trade Representative a Closet Free Trader? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

When China joined the WTO in December 2001, one of the many terms it agreed to was to allow the United States to continue to treat it as a “non-market economy“ under U.S. antidumping law for a period of 15 years. China has regretted that concession ever since, and there are precious few gestures that would win more goodwill from the Chinese government than a decision by President Obama to graduate China to market economy status now.

A ruling last month from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit making it illegal to apply the U.S. Countervailing Duty Law (anti-subsidy law) to imports from non-market economies gives the president the perfect opening to make the change now. From the perspective of a free trader, that solution is far from ideal: it preserves domestic industries’ access to the antidumping law and countervailing duty laws, both of which produce egregiously punitive duties on imports and are ripe for serious reform or outright repeal.

But the benefit of granting market economy status to China now is that it will help slow, and likely reverse the deterioration in bilateral economic relations. And that would be an important benefit for all of us.

At the very beginning of the Obama administration, Scott Lincicome and I urged the new president to consider more than just the litany of gripes so often heard at home and to recognize that China has its own justifiable concerns about U.S. policy:

The time has come to seriously consider carrots and not just sticks—particularly since the pain from the sticks is not limited to its intended targets, but is felt in the United States and in other countries, given the transnational nature of supply chains. President Obama would invigorate the relationship if he were to grant China “market economy“ treatment in anti-dumping cases. While such a reform would take very little out of petitioning industries’ hides, the gesture would win vast sums of goodwill from the

Chinese—goodwill needed to resolve more important issues going forward. Indeed, repeal of the non-market economy (NME) designation presents a “win-win“ scenario for several reasons.

First, graduation from NME status is one of the Chinese government’s top international

trade priorities. China wants to be treated like all other major economies, and accordingly, the Chinese government is likely willing to make important concessions in other contested areas of trade policy to achieve market economy status. But the longer we wait to grant market economy status to China, the less valuable that concession becomes. Under the rules governing China’s accession to the WTO, the United States must repeal China’s NME designation by 2016. Thus, the value of that “concession“

will be greater in 2009—seven years early—than it will be in 2010 or 2012. Much beyond

2012, and the concession looks a bit like Confederate money.

Second, China’s NME designation has drawn intense criticism from domestic consuming industries, trade policy experts, and U.S. trade partners because of its incongruous application (for example, Russia was deemed a “market economy“ in 2002, yet still is not a WTO member, while China became a WTO member in 2001) and the latitude for abuse of administrative discretion it affords. Also, the relatively recent change in policy that opened the door to countervailing duty cases against China has sparked controversy about whether NME treatment in anti-dumping cases should still be permissible.

U.S. revocation of China’s NME status would alleviate many of those domestic concerns at virtually no cost to domestic petitioning industries, but petitioners value NME because of the trade-suppressing uncertainty the process engenders. It is important that President Obama understand that our trade relationship with China has been mutually beneficial, that the rhetoric about the impact of unfair Chinese practices has been highly exaggerated, and that unnecessary provocation could open a Pandora’s Box of economic problems.

(Read the whole analysis here.)

Well, Lincicome (in a thorough analysis) and I (in a fairly technical one) continue to make the case for market economy designation, and welcome the retorts of those who are opposed.

President Obama Could Improve Relations with China at the Stroke of His Pen is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Earlier this year, the Cato Institute published this paper, which describes the self-flagellating nature of the U.S. antidumping law. Nearly 80 percent of all U.S. antidumping measures imposed between 2000 and 2009 (130 of 164 measures) restrict imports of intermediate goods—inputs required by U.S. producers for their own production processes.

Antidumping duties on magnesium, polyvinyl chloride, and hot-rolled steel, for example, enable petitioning U.S. companies that often dominate domestic supply of raw materials to foreclose alternative sources and then thrust higher prices on their U.S. customers. But those customers—U.S. producers of auto parts, paint, and appliances—who consume the now-restricted raw materials to produce higher value-added goods and who might otherwise create jobs, are instead made less profitable and less competitive, burdening the broader economy.

But here’s the kicker. The statute itself forbids the administering authorities from considering the economic impact of antidumping restrictions on those firms or on the economy at large. The well-being of the petitioning industry is all that matters and the collateral damage to downstream industries and the overall economy is to be ignored.

Now, the high-profile antidumping and countervailing duty cases recently initiated against solar panels from China are shining some fresh light on this outrage. A group called the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy (CASE), which represents the portion of the U.S. solar industry that is downstream of the solar panel producers (the producers’ customers), is asking the cases be dropped or settled. CASE, representing 145 member companies that employ over 14,000 workers in solar project development, logistics, construction, and installation, argues:

The severe tariffs [being sought] would have a very damaging effect on the solar industry in the United States and would fundamentally undermine many years of effort by all of us who care about the future of solar power …

In simple dollar terms, [the] petition threatens the planned installation of solar electric power systems in the amount of $11 billion in 2012 and the potential installation of $60 billion currently in the total pipeline …

By asking government to interfere and artificially increase the price (equivalent to putting on a high tax) will only hinder the deployment, cost thousands of jobs … and further negatively impact an already shaky economy.

There is no good reason for arguments like these—and the facts supporting them—to be ignored in trade remedies cases. Several other major countries that have antidumping and countervailing duty laws on their books employ a so-called public interest provision that directs the authorities to deny duties when the likely costs are demonstrated to exceed any benefits to the petitioning industry. (See page 18 for an elaboration.)

It is difficult to fathom how an administration that begs U.S. businesses to invest and hire would not be pushing hard for this particular reform. After all, the administration acknowledges the importance of ensuring downstream producers have access to imported inputs. The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has argued this point in its complaint against Chinese export restrictions at the World Trade Organization. And the president himself described how the competitiveness of U.S. firms is hurt by restrictions on imported inputs when he signed into law the Manufacturer’s Enhancement Act last year.

But then again, incongruities in this administration’s economic policies seem to be the rule, not the exception. In the solar panel case, the president has offered his rhetorical support (at least) to the petitioners, even though their success would drive up the cost of already-too-expensive solar power, reducing demand for an energy source the president has been advocating and subsidizing with the incentive of 30 percent tax credits.

I suppose the White House has determined that the cost of import duties—to consumers up front and to taxpayers through the a much higher tax credit—is worth the benefit of having a Chinese scapegoat to take the heat off the president for Solyndra’s failure.

Solar Panel Case Shines Light on the Imperative of U.S. Trade Law Reform is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

North Korea’s “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-il is dead. There is now no prospect of negotiating and implementing a new nuclear agreement with the North in the near future. The so-called Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is likely to be consumed with a power struggle which could turn violent. Washington’s best policy option is to step back and observe.

After his stroke three years ago, Kim anointed his youngest son, Kim Jong-un, as his successor. However, the latter Kim has had little time to establish himself. The previous familial power transfer to Kim Jong-il took roughly two decades. There are several potential claimants to supreme authority in the North, and the military may play kingmaker.

Some observers hope for a “Korean Spring,” but the DPRK’s largely rural population is an unlikely vehicle for change. Urban elites may want reform, but not revolution. If a North Korean Mikhail Gorbachev is lurking in the background, he will have to move slowly to survive.

During this time of political uncertainty no official is likely to have the desire or ability to make a deal yielding up North Korea’s nuclear weapons. The leadership will be focused inward and no one is likely to challenge the military, which itself may fracture politically.

Nor is China likely to play a helpful role. Beijing views the status quo as being in its interest. Above all else, China is likely to emphasize stability, though it may very well attempt to influence the succession process outside of public view. But China does not want what America wants, preferring the DPRK’s survival, just with more responsible and pliable leadership.

Washington can do little during this process. The United States should maintain its willingness to talk with the North. American officials also should engage Beijing over the future of the peninsula, exploring Chinese concerns and searching for areas of compromise. For instance, Washington should pledge that there would be no American bases or troops in a reunited Korea, which might ease Beijing’s fears about the impact of a North Korean collapse.

Most important, the Obama administration should not rush to “strengthen” the alliance with South Korea in response to uncertainty in the North. The Republic of Korea is well able to defend itself. It should take the steps necessary to deter North Korean adventurism and develop its own strategies for dealing with Pyongyang. America should be withdrawing from an expensive security commitment which no longer serves U.S. interests.

Kim Jong-il imposed unimaginable hardship on the North Korean people. However, what follows him could be even worse if an uncertain power struggle breaks down into armed conflict. Other than encourage Beijing to use its influence to bring the Kim dynasty to a merciful end, the United States can—and should—do little more than watch developments in the North.

North Korea: Kim Jong-il’s Death and the Coming Succession Struggle is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The AP and others are reporting that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il has died at the age of 70. This has long been expected, but what comes next is unclear. The best case scenario would be a smooth transition to new leadership, one that is committed to opening up North Korea’s ossified political system and reforming its decrepit economy. That is unlikely, however. If a power struggle ensues, the North Korean people will be caught in the middle. The countries with the most at stake in the event of a complete collapse of the DPRK — especially South Korea and China — should take the lead in helping the North Koreans to sort out their future.

Kim Jong-il Is Dead is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Some disturbing news indeed reached my inbox today (HT: David Boaz). Apparently honey is entering the United States under assumed identities. Chinese honey, once ubiquitous, was largely shut out of the American market through anti-dumping measures. So, this article from NPR.org alleges, it started to be sold through a third country (perhaps Indonesia, Thailand, or Malaysia) and was falsely labelled to evade the duties. (Apparently we know this because the honey can be tested for peculiar types of pollen.) The U.S. government wasn’t having any of that of course, and so they held up suspicious shipments through regulations, inspections, and documentary requirements.  So now the Chinese honey is allegedly being sold through India.

The domestic honey industry is now starting to worry that all of this nefarious, subversive honey-related activity will suppress the market for all types of honey, including their own, and are starting a fair trade-esque system called True Source Honey, which will trace the honey to a proper, ‘merican source. None of that Chinese muck.

Eric Wenger is president of True Source Honey. Soon, he’s going to Vietnam to help with the first audit of a Vietnamese honey exporter.

“The question we want to answer is: Does that exporter only purchase honey from beekeepers in that country?” he says.

The exporter will give the True Source auditor a list of the beekeepers from whom it buys honey. “Then the auditor will randomly select a number of those beekeepers, go out to that beekeeper’s apiary, and evaluate the capacity of that beekeeper to produce the volume that that exporter claimed was purchased and shipped,” says Wenger.

If everything checks out, that exporter is certified. But even after that, True Source will take samples from every shipment of honey and send those samples to a lab in Germany to see if the pollen matches the flowers that are actually blooming in Vietnam.

True Source wants to expand this system globally. One exporter in India is already certified.

Jill Clark, from Dutch Gold Honey, says these sorts of audited, verified supply chains are getting more common throughout the food business. In some cases, governments are requiring it.

“With all the food safety and food security issues, knowing where your food comes from right now is incredibly important,” she says.

Shouldn’t consumers be the ones to decide that? Removing the anti-dumping duties and discriminatory regulations will reduce the incentive for Chinese honey to be labelled falsely, and then we can decide for ourselves what is “incredibly important.” Or maybe we don’t care, and True Source will be a massive flop.

On a positive note, there are an encouraging number of libertarian comments to the article.

Citizens! Do You Know the Source of Your Honey? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton travels to the isolated nation of Burma, officially known as Myanmar, in an attempt to spur the reform process. “After years of darkness, we’ve seen flickers of progress,” said President Barack Obama of the troubled country. By visiting Burma Secretary Clinton can test the new government’s willingness to do more.

Of course, the Clinton initiative may fail. But the main argument for the policy change is not that it is certain to work, but that the alternative has failed. Isolating Burma has achieved nothing.

Burma long has been one of the most tragic of nations. The military regime brutally suppressed the democracy movement led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. Even more deadly has been the half-century long battle with ethnic groups like the Karen, which have sought autonomy in the east.

The United States and Europe responded with sanctions, but to no avail. China took advantage to secure a position of political influence and economic dominance. The military regime continued to live up to its reputation for brutality and corruption.

Now there are “flickers of progress,” as the president suggested. A badly flawed election last year; a new, nominally civilian government; the release of a few political prisoners; liberty for Ms. Suu Kyi, who also has been meeting with government ministers; and a slight break between Burma and its chief patron, Beijing.

Individually these are but small changes, and the Burmese military has previously offered tantalizing reforms only to reverse course, intensifying its brutal suppression of any opposition. However, the combination of many small steps offers hope that something more real may be happening this time. Even Suu Kyi has expressed optimism, and is preparing to reenter politics—legally.

Equally important is the increasing evidence that Burma wants to balance the influence of its imperious neighbor China. For all of the worries in America about Beijing’s growing clout around the world, the People’s Republic of China is finding out—just as the United States discovered years ago—that friends can be expensive to buy and often don’t stay bought.

Engaging Burma could encourage that state to continue on a more independent course—separate from China. The regime isn’t likely to dump its patron, but any distance between the two would be progress. The PRC’s churlish reaction to the Clinton initiative suggests that Beijing is concerned.

An adjustment in U.S. policy toward Burma was sorely needed. Isolation resulted in few positive outcomes. For the most part Asian nations, even America’s friends, ignored U.S. and European sanctions. The regime did not fall; Suu Kyi was not freed; democracy did not come; the ethnic groups did not enjoy peace. The generals simply tightened their grip.

Although this policy failure long has been obvious, no one wanted to “reward” the Burmese regime by dropping economic penalties. This left U.S. policy stuck in a political cul-de-sac. Sanctions were ineffective, doing nothing to advance human rights. But they could not be changed for the sake of appearance.

Nascent reform in Burma now offers Washington an opportunity to shift course. No one should get their hopes up. The regime may intend to only adopt a few reforms as window-dressing to win Western aid. Even if the commitment to change is real, the road to a better life for the Burmese people remains long and hard.

Nevertheless, for the first time in years there truly are “flickers of progress” in Burma. The administration is right to try to turn these flickers into something more. A desperately poor and oppressed people deserve a better life.

Cross-posted from the Skeptics at the National Interest.

Hillary Clinton Heads to Burma is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Public angst over China’s rise and the threat of populist currency legislation have prompted speculation about a U.S.-China “Trade War.” With the 2012 elections still a whole year away, there is ample opportunity for campaigning politicians to ignite that fuse.

But pyrotechnics aren’t necessary. Rather than a 1930s-style free-for-all, a trade war—if one were to begin—is more likely to be of the lowercase, “rules-based” variety, where trade restrictions are imposed in compliance (or under the pretense of compliance) with global trade rules. Many of the battles would be waged behind the façade of so-called trade remedy laws.

Antidumping and countervailing duty measures are the most commonly invoked forms of “contingent protectionism” permitted under World Trade Organization rules. Those rules allow member governments to maintain and administer national antidumping and countervailing duty laws to remedy—through the imposition of customs duties—the effects of imports determined to be sold at unfairly low prices (antidumping) or determined to be unfairly subsidized by a government (countervailing). But imposing “remedies” under these laws is contingent upon certain conditions being met. Two core conditions are that the administering authorities need to demonstrate that the imports in question are being dumped or subsidized, and that those dumped or subsidized imports are causing or threatening material injury to the domestic industry.

A determination expected tomorrow from the U.S. International Trade Commission offers a case in point. The Commission will vote on the question of whether dumped and subsidized imports of multilayered wood flooring (MLWF) from China are causing or threatening material injury to the U.S. MLWF industry. An affirmative determination could invite Chinese retaliation because the evidence of a causal connection between imports from China and injury to the U.S. industry is weak to non-existent. If the U.S. government is going to stretch or skirt the evidentiary standards established by domestic law and international treaty, the Chinese government may be inclined to do the same. (In fact, the Chinese government is already alleged to have broken those rules – and the United States is seeking recourse in the WTO – when it imposed antidumping and countervailing duties on U.S. chicken exports in 2010.)

Multilayered wood flooring is a floor covering product—used for the same practical purposes as hardwood flooring, tile, and carpeting. Sales of MLWF are highly dependent upon new housing starts and remodeling expenditures, both of which tanked when the housing bubble burst in 2008. As a result of U.S. housing starts declining from a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.1 million units in February 2008 to just 505,000 units in March 2009, as well as the large decline in remodeling activity over the same period, MLWF industry prices, shipments, revenues, and profits declined substantially, as did imports from China and other countries. But since the second quarter of 2009, housing starts have been stable at about 600,000 units per year and remodeling activity has been steady at about $112 billion per year.

Importantly for the injury analysis, this period of stability in housing starts and renovation activity enables an analysis that isolates the effects of imports on the domestic industry. And what is evident is that, as domestic consumption of MLWF picked up, so did U.S. imports, producer shipments, revenues, and profits (from -9.9 percent in 2009 to -1.0 percent in the first half of 2011). Increasing volumes of subject imports correlate with an improving condition of the domestic industry. Throughout the period of stabilization, prices in the U.S. market have been steady, as well. If imports from China were to have an injurious effect on the domestic industry, one would expect the increasing volume of such imports to drive down prices in the United States. But imports from China, on average, do not underprice domestic MLWF. According to the public version of the USITC Staff Report in this matter:

…prices for MLWF from China were below those for U.S.-produced MLWF in 60 of 110 instances; margins of underselling ranged from 1.5 to 36.4 percent. In the remaining 50 instances, prices for MLWF imported from China were above those for U.S.-produced MLWF; margins of overselling ranged from 0.1 to 30.4 percent.

An affirmative finding of injurious dumping and/or subsidization from the USITC tomorrow would require disregard of these and other crucial facts and would warrant closer scrutiny of the antidumping regime. It would also invite similar actions from Chinese trade remedies authorities and then who know where it will lead.

Trade Law, Trade War, and the Case of Multilayered Wood Flooring from China is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The Washington Post reports the Obama administration has revised its Afghan war strategy to include “more energetic efforts to persuade” Afghanistan’s neighbors—including India, China, and the Central Asian republics—to “support a political resolution.” Just yesterday, the New York Times reported that the administration was also relying on Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency “to help organize and kick-start reconciliation talks aimed at ending the war in Afghanistan.”

This is good news, but also déjà vu. The administration called for “pursuing greater regional diplomacy” back in 2009. It also said it would ask “all countries who have a stake in the future of this critical region to do their part.” Countries in the region do have a stake in Afghanistan’s future; America, however, has few effective instruments for submerging the differences among competing powers.

Take our relationship with Iran. It has made significant inroads with Afghanistan’s Hazara and Tajik communities and is well-positioned to be a key player in the region. But Tehran and Washington seem neither close to engaging in direct talks nor willing to make reciprocal concessions for the cause of furthering peace. The irony is that after 9/11, American and Iranian interests initially converged in Afghanistan: Tehran cooperated with Washington to overthrow the Taliban regime, and during the Bonn negotiations helped broker a compromise between President Karzai and the Northern Alliance.

America’s complicated relationship with Iran is one reason why what U.S. officials perceive to be in America’s best interests may not be synonymous with the pursuit of peace. Isolating Iran, or even Pakistan for that matter, will hurt the substance of negotiations, increase the incentive for these countries to sabotage peace, and hinder Washington’s ability to shape a coherent regional strategy. Even if Washington were to engage Tehran and Islamabad, they may very well decide to protract the bargaining process to convey that time is on their side (it is). One reason why the administration’s 2009 effort may have faltered was that Pakistan—a major player in Afghanistan’s internal affairs (to the consternation of many Afghans)—has come to feel that it can manage the terms of reconciliation. In fact, it is this belief that tempers Pakistan’s eagerness to be more accommodating toward the United States, which is why the case for American humility is key when it comes to the subject of negotiations.

Peace will not be perfect. Problems will rise when competing interests collide on certain core issues. Nevertheless, all parties must be sufficiently dedicated to reaching a consensus on what constitutes a manageable settlement. After all, some countries will seek to stymie their enemy’s provision of assistance to Kabul (i.e. Pakistan vis-à-vis India). Getting these countries to think otherwise will necessitate a shift in said country’s perceptions of others’ intentions.

As I wrote last week, U.S. officials understand the enormity of problems they confront in this vexing region. Proponents of peace are not blind to these difficulties. Unfortunately, much like the current nation-building effort, when it comes to regional engagement, U.S. officials could be making yet another ambitious commitment that is beyond their ability to carry out.

Cross-posted from The Skeptics at the National Interest.

A Step Forward in Afghanistan, If We Are Willing to Take It is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Tattoo it on your forearm—or better, that of your favorite legislator—for easy reference in the next debate over wiretapping: government surveillance is a security breach—by definition and by design. The latest evidence of this comes from Germany, where there’s growing furor over a hacker group’s allegations that government-designed Trojan Horse spyware is not only insecure, but packed with functions that exceed the limits of German law:

On Saturday, the CCC (the hacker group) announced that it had been given hard drives containing “state spying software,” which had allegedly been used by German investigators to carry out surveillance of Internet communication. The organization had analyzed the software and found it to be full of defects. They also found that it transmitted information via a server located in the United States. As well as its surveillance functions, it could be used to plant files on an individual’s computer. It was also not sufficiently protected, so that third parties with the necessary technical skills could hijack the Trojan horse’s functions for their own ends. The software possibly violated German law, the organization said.

Back in 2004–2005, software designed to facilitate police wiretaps was exploited by unknown parties to intercept the communications of dozens of top political officials in Greece. And just last year, we saw an attack on Google’s e-mail system targeting Chinese dissidents, which some sources have claimed was carried out by compromising a backend interface designed for law enforcement.

Any communications architecture that is designed to facilitate outsider access to communications—for all the most noble reasons—is necessarily more vulnerable to malicious interception as a result. That’s why technologists have looked with justified skepticism on periodic calls from intelligence agencies to redesign data networks for their convenience. At least in this case, the vulnerability is limited to specific target computers on which the malware has been installed. Increasingly, governments want their spyware installed at the switches—making for a more attractive target, and more catastrophic harm in the event of a successful attack.

The Lives of Others 2.0 is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

According to a story in Politico today, Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama has been whipping his Republican colleagues to vote in favor of the China currency legislation that appears to be headed for passage in the Senate. (My Cato colleague Dan Ikenson has explained  why raising tariffs on imports from China would be a mistake.)

The Politico story says that Sessions is “traditionally a proponent of free trade,” but his actual voting record indicates otherwise. According to the trade vote data base we maintain on the home page of the Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies at Cato, Sen. Sessions has voted in favor of lower trade barriers on a bare majority (26 out of 49) of the significant trade votes we’ve recorded.

Since 1997, Sen. Sessions has voted in favor of protectionist farm bills (2002, 2007, 2008), banning safety-certified Mexican trucks from U.S. roads (2007), country-of-origin labeling (2003), the WTO-illegal Byrd amendment (2003, 2005), the original Schumer-Graham bill to impose a 27.5 percent tariff against imports from China (2005), sugar import quotas (1999, 2000, 2001), and steel import quotas (1999)

Meanwhile, he’s voted against the Morocco free-trade agreement (2004), trade promotion authority (1998, 2002), and normal trade relations with Vietnam (2001) and China (1997, 1999).

And to top it all off, it was Sen. Sessions who single-handedly scuttled renewal last year of the Generalized System of Preferences, the long-standing program that had allowed certain imports from poor countries to enter the United States duty free. As my Cato colleague Sallie James has chronicled (here and here), the good senator refused to allow the program to be renewed because of a dispute affecting a small number of his constituents who are employed making sleeping bags.

Like too many of his fellow senators, Sen. Sessions supports our freedom to trade only as long as it does not affect any noisy special interests in his own state.

With Friends Like Sen. Sessions, Free Trade Is in Trouble is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Yesterday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland made the following comment regarding China’s maiden voyage in the old Varyag carcass it has been tinkering with for over a decade:

We would welcome any kind of explanation that China would like to give for needing this kind of equipment.

This echoes Donald Rumsfeld’s remarks at the 2005 Shangri-La Dialogue in which he puzzled in quintessentially Rumsfeldian fashion:

Since no nation threatens China, one must wonder:

* Why this growing investment?

* Why these continuing large and expanding arms purchases?

* Why these continuing robust deployments?

Maybe, like me, the Chinese are reading Aaron Friedberg’s new book on U.S.-China security competition (Friedberg worked on Asia for Vice President Cheney). Perhaps high-ranking military officials there shudder a bit when they read, on page 184, that someone very close to the levers of power in Washington admits mildly that

Stripped of diplomatic niceties, the ultimate aim of the American strategy is to hasten a revolution, albeit a peaceful one, that will sweep away China’s one-party authoritarian state and leave a liberal democracy in its place.

Given this, as Friedberg sensibly notes later (p. 231),

It is difficult to believe that the present Beijing regime will accept indefinitely a situation in which its fate could depend on American forbearance, and hard to see how it can escape that condition without building a much bigger and more capable navy.

I actually agree with David Axe’s characterization of the Shi Lang as “a piece of junk,” and given the geography of the region, I wouldn’t—as the Chinese aren’t—pour many resources into aircraft carriers to remedy this predicament. But if the roles were reversed, and China spent four times as much as we did on our military—and if China had naval bases ringing my coastline and fancied itself the “hub” of a “hub-and-spokes” set of alliances between itself and a variety of Latin American countries and Canada—I’d probably think that these facts, when assembled, constituted a pretty strong argument for spending more money on anything I could use to defend myself. Especially if China had recently gone on an ideological rampage trying to “hasten revolutions” and leaving smoldering wreckages in its wake.

At any rate, what’s good for the goose ought to be good for the gander, so I anxiously await the Pentagon’s detailed explanation for why we need each of our 11 aircraft carriers, every one of which is enormously more powerful than the PRC’s puny flattop.

Cross-posted from the National Interest.

Explaining Aircraft Carriers is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Yesterday, AEI scholars Dan Blumenthal and Michael Mazza authored an interesting op-ed in the Wall Street Journal with a perplexing title: “Asia Needs a Larger U.S. Defense Budget.” There are a couple of more sensible arguments you could make: For instance, that Asian countries need larger defense budgets, or that U.S. interests in Asia require larger military expenditures that Asian countries can’t or won’t make themselves . Blumenthal and Mazza gesture at both of those arguments but don’t really make either one. As such, the piece is an emblem of what’s wrong with the Asia policy discussion–to the extent it exists–in Washington today.

In the opening paragraph, the authors state that “it is…difficult to assess how much cuts [to military spending] will cost tomorrow,” but in the next sentence defy that claim by promising that “in Asia, the price will be unacceptably high.” Either it is difficult to assess how much cuts will cost tomorrow, or we know that the price of cuts in Asia will be unacceptably high, but not both. The authors also are apparently unaware of the facts when they argue that U.S. military spending has been “slashed.”  It hasn’t even been cut. (For its part, the Asia studies department at AEI was last seen disseminating wildly inflated estimates  of Chinese military spending and then refusing to answer queries about how they came up with the figures.)

Blumenthal and Mazza then swerve widely to avoid explaining China’s military buildup, writing that

The international trade that has fueled the region’s economic boom is dependent upon the immeasurable strategic tasks undertaken by the U.S. military–from keeping safe maritime shipping to reassuring friends and allies while deterring China and North Korea.

The reason that China is building up its military forces and narrowly targeting them at securing their sea lines of communication (and perhaps a bit further out) is that they quite rationally do not want to rely on the eternal beneficence of the United States to do it for them, particularly when prominent Asia scholars mention in the same breath deterring and containing China as a primary goal of the U.S. in Asia.

There are other contradictions. For instance, Blumenthal and Mazza assert flatly that

If America skimps on its military, China will become the regional hegemon.

That’s one possibility, but aren’t there others? One paragraph later, the authors allow that sure there are: the alternative is that

Asian countries might find ways to resist Chinese pressure themselves.

So then maybe it’s not foreordained that China will run amok in East Asia absent Washington as its balancer-of-first-resort. But that brings us back around to the weirdness of the title of the piece: saying that Asia needs a larger U.S. defense budget is like saying that Greece needs more German stabilization money. (While we’re here, AEI calling for more military spending is like rock legend Bruce Dickinson calling for more cowbell.)

These kinds of arguments ought to at least try to show why the best way to achieve German (or American) interests is to dole out more largesse to third parties. That may or may not be true, but it would be good to at least see an argument to that effect, rather than all the hand waving and then backing down from the strongest claims in the article.

Does Asia Need a Larger U.S. Handout? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The Chinese Communist Party celebrates its 90th birthday today. Pardon me if I do not attend the party.

It is undeniably true, as the authorities in Beijing are trumpeting, that the Chinese Mainland under one-party communist rule has enjoyed spectacular economic success during the past 30 years. China’s rapid growth was unleashed by the reforms of the late communist leader Deng Xiaoping that began in the late 1970s, but those reforms—private ownership of business, farms and housing, market pricing, foreign investment, and trade liberalization, among others—were hardly an extension of the Communist Party’s agenda. In fact, those reforms were a direct repudiation of everything the Chinese Communist Party and its co-founder Mao Tse-tung believed and practiced before and after the communist takeover of 1949.

Under Mao, tens of millions of Chinese starved in the Great Leap Forward of 1958-60. Millions suffered cruelly at the hands of the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76. During the first 30 years of communist rule, the Chinese people enjoyed neither economic nor political and civil freedom. Even amid rising economic prosperity today, China’s one-party state continues to imprison, torture, and kill people who practice their faith or question the party. That is not much of a record to celebrate.

The Chinese people do not need communist rule to prosper. We can see that plainly enough 112 miles across the Taiwan Strait. Under the rule of the Nationalist Party, the 23 million people of Taiwan made the transition from military rule to a lively, multiparty democracy with freedom of speech, assembly, and religion. Behind liberal economic reforms dating back to the 1960s, the Taiwanese people have achieved a per capita gross domestic product (at purchasing power parity) that is four and a half times greater than on the mainland—$35,700 vs. $7,600.

It does not take much imagination to envision what Mainland China would be like today if it had followed the path of Taiwan rather than that of the 90-year-old Chinese Communist Party.

Zero Cheers for the Chinese Communist Party is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

• Few GOP presidential candidates have proposed specific budget cuts.
• “Peace is in the interest of Taiwan, China, and the U.S. … But the U.S. should view continuing arms sales to Taipei as perhaps the best means to maintain stability and peace across the Taiwan Strait.”
• Market liberalization has transformed newly independent states that formerly comprised Yugoslavia.
• President Obama is simply the new standard-bearer for the bipartisan contempt for constitutional limits on power.
• Cato chairman Robert A. Levy makes the libertarian case for marriage equality:

Thursday Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The Cato Institute today published its 13th policy paper on the topic of antidumping. “Economic Self-Flagellation: How U.S. Antidumping Policy Subverts the National Export Initiative” describes with compelling anecdotes and data how the outdated assumptions of a 90-year-old law—one purported to “level the playing field” and protect U.S. companies from “unfair” foreign competition—conspire with its overzealous application to erode the competitiveness of U.S. firms.

During the decade from January 2000 through December 2009, the U.S. government imposed 164 antidumping measures on a variety of products from dozens of countries. A total of 130 of those 164 measures restricted (and in most cases, still restrict) imports of intermediate goods and raw materials used by downstream U.S. producers in the production of their final products. Those restrictions raise the costs of production for the downstream firms, weakening their capacity to compete with foreign producers in the United States and abroad.

In all of those cases, trade-restricting antidumping measures were imposed without any of the downstream companies first having been afforded opportunities to demonstrate the likely adverse impact on their own business operations. This is by design. The antidumping statute forbids the administering authorities from considering the impact of prospective duties on consuming industries—or on the economy more broadly—when weighing whether or not to impose duties.

That asymmetry has always been insane, but given the emergence and proliferation of transnational production and supply chains and cross-border investment (i.e., globalization)—evidenced by the fact that 55% of all U.S. import value consists of raw materials, intermediate goods, and capital equipment (the purchases of U.S. producers)—it is now nothing short of self-flagellation.

Most of those import-consuming, downstream producers—those domestic victims of the U.S. antidumping law—are also struggling U.S. exporters. In fact those downstream companies are much more likely to export and create new jobs than are the firms that turn to the antidumping law to restrict trade. Antidumping duties on magnesium, polyvinyl chloride, and hot-rolled steel, for example, may please upstream, petitioning domestic producers, who can subsequently raise their prices and reap greater profits. But those same “protective” duties are extremely costly to U.S. producers of auto parts, paint, and appliances, who require those inputs for their own manufacturing processes.

President Obama acknowledges as much. On August 11, 2010, at a White House signing ceremony, the president offered the following rationale for a bill that he was about to sign into law:

The Manufacturing Enhancement Act of 2010 will create jobs, help American companies compete, and strengthen manufacturing as a key driver of our economic recovery. And here’s how it works. To make their products, manufacturers—some of whom are represented here today—often have to import certain materials from other countries and pay tariffs on those materials. This legislation will reduce or eliminate some of those tariffs, which will significantly lower costs for American companies across the manufacturing landscape—from cars to chemicals; medical devices to sporting goods. And that will boost output, support good jobs here at home, and lower prices for American consumers.

Higher input prices stemming from antidumping measures are only the first assault on these downstream firms. The next wave usually takes the form of stiffer competition from firms in countries where there are no antidumping duties on the critical input. As a result, the foreign competition often operates at a cost advantage in the United States and in other markets that enables it to sell profitably at lower prices than U.S. firms can charge.

Accordingly, the profits of downstream firms are squeezed by both higher costs, due to import restrictions, and lower revenues, due to lost sales. As a consequence, countless U.S. producers in downstream industries—including firms that were once thriving in the United States and foreign markets—have suffered severe losses, contraction, and bankruptcy.

Again, the administration is well aware of this connection. Indeed, the U.S. Trade Representative launched a formal complaint against China in the WTO for that country’s restrictions on exports of certain crucial raw materials, providing the following rationale:

China maintains a number of measures that restrain exports of raw material inputs for which it is the top, or near top, world producer. These measures skew the playing field against the United States and other countries by creating substantial competitive benefits for downstream Chinese producers that use the inputs in the production and export of numerous processed steel, aluminum and chemical products and a wide range of further processed products.

Moreover, the USTR demonstrates an appreciation for the fact that restrictions on upstream products generate downstream costs that compound at successive stages in the production supply chain:

These raw material inputs are used to make many processed products in a number of primary manufacturing industries, including steel, aluminum and various chemical industries. These products, in turn become essential components in even more numerous downstream products.

If you need more evidence that the antidumping status quo is weighted heavily against import-consuming U.S. industries, consider this gem: three of the nine mineral raw materials that are the subject of the U.S. case against China in the WTO (magnesium, silicon metal, and coke) are simultaneously subject to U.S antidumping restrictions. That’s right! With our own import restrictions firmly in place, the United States is suing China to remove its export restrictions on the same products. That sounds like an excellent use of resources.

As a final indignity, many U.S. exporters suffer the wrath of foreign antidumping restrictions and other forms of protectionism that are often the result of persistent U.S. opposition to antidumping reform, as well as outright retribution for specific U.S. antidumping actions. Among recent victims are U.S. exporters to China of automobiles, fiber optic cable, chicken, grain, and paper. In countless ways, the antidumping status quo subverts U.S. competitiveness and is an albatross around the neck of the U.S. economy.

To bestow real and enduring benefits upon the U.S. economy, the antidumping law should be reformed to—at a minimum—give legal standing to manufacturers and workers in consuming industries; require the administering authorities to conduct an analysis of the economic impact of prospective antidumping duties and to deny imposition if the costs exceed a certain threshold; and require that any antidumping duties imposed not be excessive.

Antidumping Reform Crucial to U.S. Competitiveness is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

• Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty received an “A” grade from Cato in 2010 (PDF) for his fiscal record in Minnesota, but in terms of national fiscal policy, he hasn’t gone far enough on ethanol subsidies.
• Regarding North Korea, “the United States should indicate its willingness to rethink its commitment to nonproliferation if the North continues its nuclear program. Maybe it would be better if South Korea and Japan were able to defend themselves than keeping them forever reliant on the United States and keeping America forever entangled.”
• Why is the federal government involved in state and local transportation issues?
• “Regulating, restricting, or eliminating [oil futures markets] would not bring prices down or make them more predictable.”
• Tim Pawlenty also sides with law enforcement on the medical marijuana issue. It’s too bad he doesn’t seem to side with taxpayers.

Thursday Links is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

The Washington Post ran a story in yesterday’s print edition about the U.S. antidumping order against Wooden Bedroom Furniture from China—a case I described seven years ago as the “Poster Child for [Antidumping] Reform” because its sordid details explode the myths upon which rest the rationalizations for the law’s existence.

Those details are nowhere to be found in the WP article, which was published, presumably, to make a few other points.  One such point—the only one with which I agree—is that antidumping duties aren’t very effective at restoring or preserving U.S. jobs.  As the article demonstrates, since the imposition of AD duties on Chinese furniture beginning in 2005, imports from Vietnam, Indonesia, and other countries not subject to the AD restrictions have emerged to fill the vacuum created by declining imports from China.  Not much news in that, though.  This kind of trade diversion is a typical consequence of antidumping restrictions. Likewise, furniture production and the jobs it used to support has not undergone a renaissance in the United States – despite that being the rallying cry of the domestic producers who brought the case in 2004. (More on that in a moment.)

But the article—beginning with its title (“Chinese Make a Run Around U.S. Tariffs”)—leads readers to the faulty conclusion that those cunning Chinese are at it again, looking for ways to prosper at the expense of innocent, upstanding U.S. producers and their workers.  A pretty good tip-off that an article about China and trade is going to miss the mark, mislead, and misinform is when the author describes trade as a contest between two countries with the trade account characterized as a scoreboard.

The United States and China have exchanged accusations of dumping for years and imposed tit-for-tat duties.  All along, though, China has generally come out on top: Its trade surplus with the United States rose to $273 billion in 2010…more than three times the level of a decade earlier.

Is the reader to conclude, then, that more antidumping measures against Chinese products are integral to reducing the trade deficit and, ultimately, “com[ing] out on top”?  That conclusion doesn’t really dovetail with the point about how antidumping does nothing to restore U.S. production.  But I digress.

The main problem with the article is that it escorts readers to the incorrect conclusion that it was Chinese furniture producers who initiated efforts to get around the U.S. antidumping duties.  Implied throughout the article is that a man named Lawrence Yen, president of a Chinese furniture company, was the architect of some crafty plan to avoid U.S. duties.  It reports that during a meeting of Chinese furniture makers in Dongguan: “[Yen] told them [he] would set up a factory in Vietnam,” which was presented in the article as though it were the idea’s genesis.  The caption to the inset chart of furniture imports in the article reads:

To avoid a 2005 U.S. tariff on Chinese-made wooden bedroom furniture, Chinese furniture companies moved operations to other Asian countries, thwarting U.S. efforts to curb “dumping,” the export of goods at unfairly low prices.

This presentation of events may serve the clichéd theme that Americans are in a pitched battle with the Chinese, who are willing to stretch and break the rules to “win,” but it fails to give readers critical parts of the story.  The fact is that this strategic tariff aversion plan, which is as legal and common as off-the-shelf tax minimization software at Best Buy, was the brainchild of the U.S. domestic furniture industry before it filed the case in 2004.

Here’s where my 2004 paper would be useful to readers interested in a fuller accounting of the details:

The case of Wooden Bedroom Furniture from China has nothing to do with unfair trade and is a perfect example of the need for antidumping reform. The filing of this case was a tactical maneuver by one group of domestic producers that seeks to exploit the gaping loopholes of the antidumping law to get a leg up on its domestic competition. Domestic producers realize that the only way to compete and offer their customers variety is to source at least some production from abroad. Instead of preserving or returning domestic jobs (which is the public justification for the petition) import restrictions will cause a shift in sourcing from China to places like the Philippines, Indonesia, Brazil, and Vietnam–places from which many of the petitioners have begun or are poised to begin importing themselves.

At the time this case was initiated, the same U.S. furniture producers who were petitioning for relief from imports from China were investing in furniture operations in other countries.  There’s nothing illegal or objectionable about investing in foreign production, but the assertions of the petitioning U.S. producers that their aim was to restore U.S. production and U.S. jobs were clearly false.  It is testament to the laughably modest standards for finding a domestic industry injured by reason of dumped imports that duties were ever imposed in the furniture case.  Consider this:

The petitioners’ argument that the U.S. furniture industry is being hurt by Chinese imports is similarly suspect. In the 1990s, U.S. producers began to supplement their domestic production with furniture made in China. The import surge from China did not begin until years after U.S. producers began to cultivate the Chinese industry.

Consider the experience of Vaughan-Bassett Furniture Company, one of the largest U.S. producers and a petitioner in this case. In the late 1990s Vaughan-Bassett invited one of the largest Chinese producers, Lacquer Craft, to its factory to videotape production of bedroom furniture so that it could produce bedroom furniture in China for Vaughan-Bassett to import and resell. According to testimony before the ITC, U.S. producers turned to China to “supplement their product line because they had ideas, they had designs, they were the professionals in our industry, and they knew after traveling to China and seeing the infrastructure there that they could make certain bedrooms in China, bring it here, mark it up 30 to 40 percent to a retailer and still sell it for less than they could have made it for.”

Some producers invested directly in Chinese manufacturing facilities, while others simply imported from unrelated Chinese producers. U.S. retailers soon caught on, recognizing the many benefits of purchasing from China. They could cut out the middlemen (U.S. producers) who were simply importing, marking up, and profiting; they could produce a greater variety of designs (including hand carvings and inlays) that are cost-prohibitive in the United States; they could respond to high levels of defects in U.S. production by switching to alternatives; and they could have custom designs mass-produced and labeled under their own brand names.

While imports of wooden bedroom furniture from China have increased considerably over the past few years, domestic producers (including many of the companies that brought or at least supported the antidumping petition) have played a major role in that increase. In 2000, 6 percent of domestic producers’ U.S. shipments were sourced from China. By 2002, that figure increased to 19.6 percent, and through the first half of 2003, that figure stood at 26.6 percent.

According to the ITC’s own preliminary report in this case:

As an initial matter, we note that the record indicates it has become common practice for members of the domestic industry to import the subject merchandise from China as a means of supplementing their domestic production in the market place. For example, the record shows that 20 of the 40 responding domestic producers imported Chinese merchandise during the period and that the 12 largest domestic producers of wooden bedroom furniture all imported reasonably substantial and increasing volumes of merchandise from China during the period of investigation. In fact, the *** companies within the petitioning group all have imported increasing volumes of subject merchandise from China during the period of investigation.

The essence of this case, then, is well summarized by representatives of Furniture Brands International, Inc., the largest U.S. producer and an opponent of the petition. This case boils down to “a request by domestic producers who are significant importers of the subject merchandise to impose duties on imports that they have voluntarily made on the ground that their very own actions have caused them injury.”

Are petitioners really calling on the federal government to stop them before they import again? The actual story looks more complicated. Evidence presented during the ITC proceeding indicates that certain petitioners have begun or are poised to begin importing from alternate sources should antidumping duties be imposed on Chinese furniture.

The ITC preliminary report confirms this trend is likely underway:

U.S. imports of wooden bedroom furniture from Indonesia, Brazil, Malaysia, and Thailand, the fifth, sixth, eighth, and tenth respective largest foreign country suppliers of wooden bedroom furniture to the United States, increased by a total of $100.4 million during 2000-02 and by another $26.7 million in January-June 2003 from the same period in 2002. Although still a small supplier of wooden bedroom furniture to the U.S. market, U.S. imports of these products from Vietnam increased by a total of $8.5 million during 2000-02 and by another $11.6 million in January-June 2003 from the same period in 2002.

A brief submitted to the ITC by the Furniture Retailers Group indicated that petitioners “have been busy helping to set up operations in numerous third countries, such as Indonesia and Vietnam, where costs are lower than in China. In fact, this week representatives of Vaughan-Bassett are in Vietnam meeting with Vietnamese furniture companies.”

The brief went on to question why the petition named only China and not any of the other low-price third-countries since source-shifting is a common response to country-specific antidumping duties. The answer, of course, was implied.

Although  the antidumping law is hailed by its supporters as a tool to ensure “fair trade” and to “level the playing field” and to protect American firms and workers from “ill-intentioned foreigners,” the fact is that the law is frequently used by U.S. companies seeking advantage over other U.S. companies, with hapless consumers and consuming-industries the collateral damage.

But when media give scant and selective coverage to the topic, they are abetting the status quo, which depends on the continued inscrutibility of the operation of this costly canard.

Antidumping and Bedroom Furniture from China: The Real Story is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Jack Goldstone, who will speak Monday at a Cato Forum, “Civil Resistance and Revolution in the Arab World,” has two interesting articles published today in Foreign Affairs and the Washington Post.

In the Post, Goldstone, who is the Hazel Professor and director of the Center for Global Policy at George Mason University, suggests that China’s rapid economic growth is going to slow down. In Foreign Affairs, more relevantly for Monday’s forum, his topic is “Understanding the Revolutions of 2011” (reg. req.). The magazine’s summary:

Revolutions rarely succeed, writes one of the world’s leading experts on the subject — except for revolutions against corrupt and personalist “sultanistic” regimes. This helps explain why Tunisia’s Ben Ali and Egypt’s Mubarak fell — and also why some other governments in the region will prove more resilient.

At the Cato Forum — 4:00 p.m. Monday — Goldstone will join Peter Ackerman to discuss similar questions:

What explains the swift collapse of what were considered some of the most stable regimes in the Arab world? Drawing on scholarship and his Center’s experience in supporting pro-democracy activists in Egypt and around the world, Peter Ackerman will describe factors — such as strategy and careful planning — that are common to successful civil resistance movements. According to Ackerman, nonviolent campaigns have a better record at bringing down dictators than violent confrontations. Jack Goldstone will describe the conditions that give rise to revolutions, highlight the vulnerabilities of “sultanistic” dictatorships, and identify which Middle Eastern regimes are most likely to retain power.

Register now!

The Arab Revolutions — Monday at Cato is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog

Earlier this week I repeatedly heard the claim that if the federal government does not guarantee credit risk in the mortgage market, foreigners won’t buy U.S. mortgage-related debt.  Before we test whether that claim is true, let’s first determine just how important are foreign investors in the U.S. mortgage market.

For the most part, foreign investors do not hold U.S. mortgages directly, but either hold Fannie and Freddie debt and mortgage-backed securities (MBS) or hold private-label MBS.  As the private-label securities lack a government guarantee, we can ignore that segment of the market.  The chart below depicts the percentage share of foreign ownership of these securities in recent years:

The chart illustrates that, at times (particularly around the peak of the recent housing bubble), foreign investors have been large providers of capital to the GSEs.  In 2007, over 20% of GSE debt was held outside the United States, double the percentage from only a few years earlier.  The increase was driven almost exclusively by purchases by foreign governments (mostly central banks for the purpose of currency manipulation).  In 2007, this amounted to just over $1.5 trillion. 

However, if we went back and looked at a year prior to the super-heated housing market — say 2003 — then this total is about $650 billion.  Given that U.S. commercial banks now have about $1 trillion in cash sitting on their balance sheets, it appears that domestic sources could completely fund the U.S. mortgage market without any foreign funds.

But let’s say we want to keep the option of living beyond our means and have the rest of the world fund a large part of our mortgage market.  Would they?  Given that foreign investors currently hold over $5.4 trillion in U.S. corporate bonds and equities (not all guaranteed by the U.S. taxpayer), I think it’s fair to assume that these foreign investors have some appetite for U.S.  assets. 

Now does that mean foreigners would buy the debt of massively leveraged, mismanaged mortgage companies subject to constant political-cronyism, without some guarantee?  Probably not.  But then, it strikes me that a better way to attract foreign investment into the U.S. mortgage market is to deal with those issues, rather than paper over those problems with a taxpayer-funded guarantee. 

It is also worth noting that when we most needed foreign support for the U.S. mortgage market, in 2008, foreign investors were dumping Fannie and Freddie debt in significant amounts.  And obviously I think we’d prefer that the Chinese Central Bank stop using the purchase of Fannie and Freddie debt to depress the value of their own currency.

Do We Need China to Fund Our Mortgage Market? is a post from Cato @ Liberty - Cato Institute Blog