President Obama’s Cognitive Dissonance on Trade with Latin America
As President Obama flies from Brazil to Chile today and then on to El Salvador later this week, trade and jobs have been a major theme of his trip. So far the tour has been a public relations success, but it also highlights the contradictions in the president’s trade policy toward our Latin American neighbors.
One contradiction is that the president says nice things about trade agreements in the abstract, but he has so far refused to show leadership when it really matters. In an op-ed in USAToday on Friday, as he was about to depart for Brazil, the president wrote:
Thanks in part to our trade agreements across the region, we now export three times as much to Latin America as we do to China, and our exports to the region — which are growing faster than our exports to the rest of the world — will soon support more than 2 million jobs here in the United States.
Yet nowhere in the 900-word article did the president even mention “Colombia” and “Panama,” two countries that have already signed trade agreements with the United States but are waiting for the president to ask Congress to actually vote on them. The Colombia agreement alone would stimulate an extra $1 billion a year in U.S. exports. (See our recent Cato study.)
Yet because his labor-union allies oppose both agreements, President Obama could not bring himself to even mention them in a major article on Latin American trade, exports, and jobs. More than passing strange.
A second contradiction is that the president talks a lot about reducing barriers to trade in other countries, but hardly ever acknowledges remaining trade barriers in the United States. No other country would like to hear that acknowledgment more than Brazil, whose producers face high U.S. barriers to some of their most important exports.
In a speech yesterday in Rio de Janeiro, the president told his hosts:
In a global economy, the United States and Brazil should expand trade, expand investment, so that we create new jobs and new opportunities in both of our nations. And that’s why we’re working to break down barriers to doing business. That’s why we’re building closer relationships between our workers and our entrepreneurs.
Our commercial relations with Brazil could be even closer if the United States did not maintain high trade barriers against such major Brazilian exports as sugar, ethanol, steel, and orange juice. Brazil would also export more cotton and soybeans if the U.S. government did not so heavily subsidize our own production.
If President Obama has been working to break down those U.S.-imposed barriers to U.S.-Brazilian trade, I somehow missed the news.
Can a Tariff Wall Restore America’s Industrial Glory?
Did America become a great industrial power in the 19th century because of its high trade barriers? This is not just an academic question. Modern-day critics of trade, such as Pat Buchanan and Ian Fletcher, argue that the same tariff wall that made American great more than a century ago can bring back those days of industrial glory.
I did my best to debunk this flawed historical argument in Chapter 7 of Mad about Trade, but I’m delighted to see my free-trade buddy Don Boudreaux of George Mason University weigh in with an article in the new issue of The Freeman.
Under the title, “Tariffs and Freedom,” Don neatly dispels a number of myths surrounding that period in American economic history.
Free the Colombia Trade Agreement
Thirty-nine members of Congress from both major parties sent a letter to President Obama this week urging him to seek passage of the long-stalled free trade agreement with our South American ally Colombia.
The agreement to eliminate trade barriers between our two countries was signed in November 2006, but under the influence of their trade-union allies, Democratic leaders in the House have refused to even allow a vote.
As signers of the letter point out (go here for a Cato analysis), the agreement would be good for our economy and good for U.S. foreign policy. So far, the delay in passage has forced U.S. exporters to Colombia to pay $2.7 billion in extra duties that would have been eliminated if the agreement had become law.
The bipartisan supporters also rightly note that Colombia is a key ally, standing as a democratic alternative to both the Marxist FARC guerrillas and their authoritarian friend, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. As the letter correctly states:
Colombia has made remarkable progress on many fronts, emerging as a major growth market and leading center for Latin American business. In a region that has seen a disturbing increase in hostility to U.S. interests and values, Colombia has consistently proven itself to be an important friend, a reliable partner and a bulwark for democracy.
With Colombia in the process of electing a new president after eight years of progress under Alvaro Uribe, it is more important than ever that we strengthen our ties with Colombia through peaceful commerce.
The 20 House Democrats who signed the June 2 letter prove that this need not be a partisan issue. If President Obama is serious about boosting U.S. exports, building friendships abroad, and reaching across the aisle for the good of the country, he should heed the wise words of this letter.
A Post-Health Care Realignment?
From Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal to Joe Biden’s Big F-ing Deal, progressives have led a consistent and largely successful campaign to expand the size and scope of the federal government. Now, Matt Yglesias suggests, it’s time to take a victory lap and call it a day:
For the past 65-70 years—and especially for the past 30 years since the end of the civil rights argument—American politics has been dominated by controversy over the size and scope of the welfare state. Today, that argument is largely over with liberals having largely won. [...] The crux of the matter is that progressive efforts to expand the size of the welfare state are basically done. There are big items still on the progressive agenda. But they don’t really involve substantial new expenditures. Instead, you’re looking at carbon pricing, financial regulatory reform, and immigration reform as the medium-term agenda. Most broadly, questions about how to boost growth, how to deliver public services effectively, and about the appropriate balance of social investment between children and the elderly will take center stage. This will probably lead to some realigning of political coalitions. Liberal proponents of reduced trade barriers and increased immigration flows will likely feel emboldened about pushing that agenda, since the policy environment is getting substantially more redistributive and does much more to mitigate risk. Advocates of things like more and better preschooling are going to find themselves competing for funds primarily with the claims made by seniors.
I’d like to believe this is true, though I can’t say I’m persuaded. It seems at least as likely that, consistent with the historical pattern, the new status quo will simply be redefined as the “center,” and proposals to further augment the welfare state will move from the fringe to the mainstream of opinion on the left.
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.
Obama’s SOTU Export Promise: Bold and Unrealistic
In his State of the Union speech, President Obama vowed to double U.S. exports in five years to (all together now) “create jobs.”
Exports are dandy, and they do support higher-paying jobs, but the president’s pledge was unrealistic and raises false hopes that it will make any dent in the unemployment rate.
U.S. exports have not doubled in dollar terms during a five-year period since the inflation-plagued 1970s, not exactly a golden era for the U.S. economy. In real terms, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, exports have not come close to doubling during any five-year stretch in the past 40 years. The fastest growth in inflation-adjusted exports came in the second half of the 1980s, when they grew by two-thirds from 1985 to 1990. Other periods of robust growth were the mid-1990s, and during the second term of George W. Bush, when five-year export growth approached 50 percent.
Export growth is certainly enhanced by a weaker dollar and lower trade barriers abroad, but the primary driver of export growth is rising GDP and demand abroad, and that is something outside even this president’s direct control. The key to reducing U.S. unemployment is not primarily selling more to growing markets abroad, but selling more in a robustly growing market at home.
Other Obama policies will actually make it more difficult to achieve his export pledge. The president renewed his misguided pledge last night to raise taxes on U.S. multinational companies that “ship jobs overseas.” Yet, as I pointed out in a Free Trade Bulletin last year, U.S.-owned affiliates in other countries sold $4 trillion worth of U.S. branded goods and services in 2006. A large chunk of our exports go to those affiliates to help them make their final products for sale. Forcing U.S. firms to cut back their foreign operations will douse an important source of demand for U.S. exports.
The only major foreign market that has recently doubled its demand for U.S. exports in a five-year span is China. Yet President Obama has needlessly antagonized potential customers in our fourth-largest export market by imposing tariffs on Chinese tire imports and threatening other trade-reducing actions.
We can best promote more open markets abroad by setting a good example ourselves.
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.
Democrats Favor Trade Sanctions on Americans
Scott Lincicome sharpens his pencil today and calculates that Congressional failure to ratify the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement–a deal that was signed almost three full years ago–has so far cost American exporters $2 billion. That tally increases $1.9 million each and every day.
Since that time [the trade agreement signing], American exporters have paid approximately $1.9 million per day in Colombian tariffs that they wouldn’t have paid if the Democrat-controlled Congress had just passed the FTA back then and thus allowed it to enter into force. By my math, that means that Congress’ and (now) the President’s partisan stalling has resulted in a pointless tax on American businesses of almost $2 billion ($1.9798 billion = 1042 days times $1.9 million) and counting.
My colleague Dan Griswold explained yesterday how U.S. trade policy punishes poorer people abroad, and amounts to a regressive tax here at home:
America’s highest remaining trade barriers are aimed at products mostly grown and made by poor people abroad and disproportionately consumed by poor people at home. While industrial goods and luxury products typically enter under low or zero tariffs, the U.S. government imposes duties of 30 pecent or more on food and lower-end clothing and shoes — staple goods that loom large in the budgets of poor families.
The Obama administration and Congress could easily remove the sanctions that burden America’s exporters and lower-income consumers. But until they’re convinced that they can make up the revenues lost by crossing Big Labor, the Democratic Party playbook counsels more of the same disingenuous rhetoric of fraternity with the common man and more exaggerations about evil foreign labor practices.
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