U.S. Antidumping Regime Restrains U.S. Export Growth
In honor of World Trade Week—and for its decreed purpose of educating Americans about trade—this post is about U.S. trade policy working at cross-purposes with other policies or goals of the administration. So numerous are these examples of trade policy dissonance, that a committed wonk could devote an entire website to the task of documenting them.
If the administration were serious about making trade policy work—rather than just paying it lip service—it would compile its own exhaustive list of laws, regulations, policies, and practices that actually undermine its stated objectives of facilitating economic growth, investment, and job creation through expanded trade opportunities. Then, it would make the changes necessary to ensure that our policies are paddling in the same direction. But that is not happening—at least as far as I can see.
Time to Lose the Trade Enforcement Fig Leaf
During his SOTU address last week, the president declared it a national goal to double our exports over the next five years. As my colleague Dan Griswold argues (a point that is echoed by others in this NYT article), such growth is probably unrealistic. But with incomes rising in China, India and throughout the developing world, and with huge amounts of savings accumulated in Asia, strong U.S. export growth in the years ahead should be a given—unless we screw it up with a provocative enforcement regime.
The president said:
If America sits on the sidelines while other nations sign trade deals, we will lose the chance to create jobs on our shores. But realizing those benefits also means enforcing those agreements so our trading partners play by the rules.
Ah, the enforcement canard!
One of the more persistent myths about trade is that we don’t adequately enforce our trade agreements, which has given our trade partners license to cheat. And that chronic cheating—dumping, subsidization, currency manipulation, opaque market barriers, and other underhanded practices—the argument goes, explains our trade deficit and anemic job growth.
But lack of enforcement is a myth that was concocted by congressional Democrats (Sander Levin chief among them) as a fig leaf behind which they could abide Big Labor’s wish to terminate the trade agenda. As the Democrats prepared to assume control of Congress in January 2007, better enforcement—along with demands for actionable labor and environmental standards—was used to cast their opposition to trade as conditional, even vaguely appealing to moderate sensibilities. But as is evident in Congress’s enduring refusal to consider the three completed bilateral agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea (which all exceed Democratic demands with respect to labor and the environment), Democratic opposition to trade is not conditional, but systemic.
Another Reason Imports Get a Bad Rap
Why blame only media and politicians for the public’s confusion about imports and trade deficits? Surely economists deserve some scorn. Some of the misunderstanding can be traced to the famous National Income Identity, which expresses gross domestic product, as: Y = C + G + I + (X-M). That is, national output (Y) equals personal consumption (C) plus government spending (G) plus investment (I) plus exports (X) minus imports (M).
The expression clearly lends itself to the wrong interpretation. The minus sign preceding imports suggests a negative relationship with output. It is the reason for the oft-repeated fallacy that imports are a drag on growth. Here’s why that conclusion is wrong.
The expression is an accounting identity, which “accounts” for all of the possible channels for disposing of our national output. That output is either consumed in the private sector, consumed by government, invested by business, or exported. The identity requires subtraction of aggregate imports because consumption, government spending, business investment, and exports all contain, in various amounts, import value. Americans consume domestic and imported products and services, the aggregate of which shows up in Consumption. Likewise, Government purchases include domestic and imported products and services; businesses Invest in domestic and imported machines and inventory; and, eXports often contain some imported intermediate components. Thus, the identity would overstate national output if it didn’t make that adjustment for iMports. After all, imports are not made on U.S. soil with U.S. factors of production, so they shouldn’t be included in an expression of our national output.
Mainstream Media’s Trade Gap
In a post at the Enterprise Blog two days ago, economist Mark Perry deftly parodies a typical mainstream media account of trade protectionism by editing the story in redline to contrast its original presentation with its true significance. I recommend reading the whole thing, but here’s the first paragraph:
WASHINGTON POST (Reuters) – A U.S. trade panel gave final approval on Wednesday to duties taxes ranging from 10 to 16 percent on cost-conscious firms in the U.S. who purchase low-priced Chinese-made steel pipe rather than high-price domestic pipe, in the biggest U.S. trade case to date against China American companies (and their shareholders, employees, and customers) who shop globally for their inputs and find the best value in China.
Perry’s point—and I share his frustration—is that the mainstream media typically fail to convey even a sense of the costs of U.S. protectionism to U.S. interests even though Americans (and non-Americans living in the U.S.) bear the greatest burden of that protectionism. When the U.S. government imposes duties on Chinese steel, it is imposing taxes on U.S. consuming industries, their employees, their shareholders, and their customers.
Government and GDP
The expansion in government and poor state of the economy got me thinking about how government growth is reflected in measured gross domestic product. So here is a wonky look at the treatment of government in the Bureau of Economic Analysis GDP data.
Data notes: By “government,” I mean total federal, state, and local. For 2009, I’m using the average of second and third quarter data. All data from BEA Tables here.
GDP measures total production. In 2009, government production was 20.7 percent of U.S. GDP. Government production is roughly the sum of government value-added (the stuff it produces itself) and government purchases. The first item, government value-added, was 12.4 percent of GDP and mainly consists of employee compensation. For example, the Pentagon produces output by adding together fighter pilots, which it hires, and fighter jets, which it buys.
A more commonly cited measure of government is total government spending. In 2009, that was 38 percent of GDP. The difference between this number (38 percent) and the production number (20.7 percent) is 17.3 percent, and represents the sum of government interest payments and transfer payments to individuals and businesses.
Figure 1 shows how the three measurements of government size have changed over time. Government production has remained fairly stable as a share of the economy, but total government spending has soared. The growing gap between these two lines mainly represents the massive growth in transfer (or subsidy) programs, such as Social Security.
Schumer Fouls Out
Chuck Schumer is perhaps my favorite U.S. Senator because of his endless capacity to make me laugh. He often reminds me of Inspector Clouseau, the earnest but bumbling detective from the Pink Panther movies.
Through an excellent post by Scott Lincome today, I learned not only that official NBA jerseys (those worn by the players) are made for Adidas in upstate New York, but that Senator Schumer is attempting to thwart the company’s decision to move production to Thailand.
I share Scott’s assessment of the absurdity of Schumer’s efforts, but more importantly, I wanted to share this humorous footage of Schumer’s awkward nativist appeal that basketball is an American-centric game….conducted in front of German-born NBA Star Dirk Nowitski’s jersey.
Classic!
Is Trade Policy Obsolete?
That is one of the conclusions in my new paper, “Made on Earth: How Global Economic Integration Renders Trade Policy Obsolete.”
For hundreds of years, trade policy has been premised on the assumptions that exports are good, imports are bad, and the interests of domestic producers are tantamount to the “national interest.” Though that mercantilist worldview has never been accurate, its persistence as a pillar of trade policy into the 21st century is especially confounding given the emergence and proliferation of disaggregated production processes, transnational supply chains, and cross-border investment. Those trends have blurred any meaningful distinctions between “our” producers and “their” producers and speak to a long chain of interdependent economic interests between product conception and consumption.
New Paper: Why Sustainability Standards for Biofuel Production Make Little Economic Sense
The U.S. sustainability standard currently requires ethanol production to emit at least 20% less CO2 than the gasoline it is assumed to replace. In a new study, authors Harry de Gorter and David R. Just argue that sustainability standards for ethanol are, by definition, illogical and ineffective. Moreover, say de Gorter and Just, those standards divert attention from the contradictions and inefficiencies of ethanol import tariffs, tax credits, mandates, and subsidies, all of which exist whether ethanol is sustainable or not.
President Obama Subsidizes President Obama with Tire Tariff
Who benefits from 35 percent duties on Chinese-produced tires?
U.S. producers? No, they are the ones who, pursuing profit-maximizing strategies, have consciously shifted production of low-end tires from their U.S. plants to their Chinese plants over the past few years. They will now have to incur the costs of shifting production from China to production facilities in Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia and other developing countries, where it makes economic sense to produce low-end tires.
U.S. workers, then? Nah. Low-end U.S. tire production workers won’t see an increase in U.S. capacity, capacity utilization, hours worked, or wages because, as implied above, production isn’t coming back to the United States. Meanwhile, U.S. workers in tire wholesaling, distribution, and other segment of the supply chain are likely to see a decline in business in the short-run, as higher prices reduce demand for tires. Things may improve once adjustments are made to the new production locations, but that will involve certain adjustment costs and lower profit margins because presumably China is the profit-maximizing production location. Right? Why else would producers have chosen China?
Does the tariff benefit consumers, then? Come on. Not only will it lead to higher prices for consumers, but it will hit cost-conscious consumers the hardest. And you thought President Obama opposed regressive taxation?
No, the only beneficiary of the tariff is President Obama, who presumably gets some political mileage for his Chicago-style payback of Big Labor. But make no mistake that any benefits to the president will be fleeting, as the direct costs of the tire tariff and the costs of copycat protectionism start to squeeze economic recovery. As the president is flooded with similar requests for protection from other unions and producers, he will have to choose between disappointing those favor-seekers or strangling economic prospects entirely. The tire decision was selfish and shortsighted.
New Cato Paper Warns of the Consequences of Restrictions on Chinese Tires
Despite the controversy that seems to color all portrayals of U.S. trade with China, the bilateral relationship has held up remarkably well, to the benefit of both countries. But, as I explain in this hot-off-the-presses Free Trade Bulletin, things could go south quickly if President Obama grants the wish of the United Steelworkers union to impose import restrictions on Chinese-produced passenger tires.
Under a special U.S. statute that applies only to China, the president can authorize import restrictions in cases where a domestic industry is found to be suffering from “market disruption” on account of increased imports from China. The U.S. International Trade Commission already rendered that conclusion in the tires case and recommended that the president impose duties of 55 percent. Though duties might benefit the USW, which represents fewer than half of all U.S. tire production workers, the restrictions would be immensely costly to almost every other interest in the tire supply chain, including distributors, wholesalers, retailers, downstream industrial users, and consumers — especially lower income consumers. Such a decision would amount to a crystal clear U.S. disavowal of its pledge to the G-20 to avoid new invocations of protectionism, just one week ahead of the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh.
The stakes are particularly high in the tires case because the president has the discretion to reject the tariff recommendations altogether, which is exactly what President Bush did on all four occasions when the ITC recommended restrictions under this statute during his administration. Unlike antidumping and countervailing duty restrictions, which run on statutory autopilot without requiring the president’s attention or consent, Section 421 explicitly requires the attention and participation of the U.S. president. The Chinese will view restrictions in this case, then, as a personal directive of President Obama, and the consequences for bilateral relations could be severe.
Please read the paper and circulate liberally.
Obama Administration Sides With Special Interests and Status Quo on Sugar Imports
Pardon me while I pile on the post earlier today by my colleague Sallie James about the Obama administration refusing to allow more sugar to be imported to the United States. The U.S. Department of Agriculture this week declined to relax the quotas the federal government imposes on imported sugar despite soaring domestic prices and understandable complaints from U.S. confectioners and other sugar-consuming businesses about potential shortages.
For all his talk about change, President Barack Obama has shown no inclination to pursue meaningful reform of U.S. agricultural programs. He supported the subsidy-laden and protectionist farm bill that finally passed Congress in 2008. On the eve of the U.S. presidential election in October 2008, he wrote a letter to the U.S. sugar industry reminding growers that they were one special interest that had nothing to fear from an Obama administration.
In his letter, he offered the sugar lobby this assurance:
With respect to the sugar program specifically, while it’s true I have had concerns about the program, I will commit to listening and working with you in the future to ensure that we have a safety net that works for all of agriculture.
He then went on to criticize his opponent John McCain for opposing the farm bill and voting consistently against the sugar program (or, as Obama put it, “against sugar growers”).
In my new Cato book, Mad about Trade: Why Main Street America Should Embrace Globalization, I call the sugar program “the poster boy for self-damaging protectionism.” As I write in the book,
When the program is not raising prices for consumers at the store, it is savaging the bottom line for American companies. Artificially high domestic sugar prices raise the cost of production for refined sugar, candy and other confectionary products, chocolate and cocoa products, chewing gum, bread and other bakery products, cookies and crackers, and frozen bakery goods. Higher costs cut into profits and competitiveness, putting thousands of jobs in jeopardy.
If the president is looking for good bedtime reading on why he should dump the sugar program, I suggest he go straight to pages 147, 154-55, 160-62, and 170-72.
Sweet, and Yet Very, Very Sour
My colleagues have blogged before about the recent sugar “market” woes. There was some hope that the USDA, which manages sugar imports very carefully to maintain U.S. prices up to three times higher than world prices, would relax the sugar quotas this year and give sugar users some well-deserved and long overdue relief.
Alas, it was not to be. According to Congress Daily, the USDA announced today [$] that there would be no increase in the import quota for the time being, and that their models saw no cause for alarm because of predicted increases in domestic production and Mexican imports (allowed special import status through NAFTA). And who cares about sugar users’ concerns when you have models?
The American Sugar Alliance says (sigh) that the announcement “makes perfect sense. Supplies are adequate and will soon be building. If any tightness were to emerge, it would not be until next summer. USDA will have adequate time next spring to boost supplies.”
Do you hear that, sugar consumers of America? The USDA is on the case. Now, I’ve got nothing personally against the folks at USDA. I know many of them personally and they are fine people, and smart economists, who are just following congressional orders. But, really, are we still, in 2009, in an at least nominally market-oriented economy, seriously attempting to micro-manage supply and demand of commodities?
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