More on the Ex-Im Bank
But I realize that my recent call to “X Out the Ex-Im Bank” will be facing some very entrenched interests in Washington, and some well-funded lobby groups. The Bank has historically attracted bipartisan support, and a renewal of its charter sailed through the House Committee on Financial Services earlier this year. The Washington establishment loves this program.
My friend and long-time Ex-Im Bank supporter Gary Hufbauer of the Peterson Institute for International Economics published a critique a few weeks ago of my analysis, and calls for a doubling of Ex-Im’s authorization cap (from $100 billion to $200 billion). His piece is a fair characterization of my arguments, and at least Gary tries to counter them with actual facts and analysis (not always a given in an increasingly poisonous trade policy environment). But it seems to me that Gary focuses his critique on my assessment of the effectiveness of the Bank. That’s fair enough, of course, but I tried in my paper to make the point that the efficiency or efficacy of the Ex-Im Bank’s activities is kind of irrelevant. The important point, which Gary did not address, is that it is simply not the proper role of the federal government to be in this business at all, even if they can operate “efficiently” (which I do not concede in any case). Where in the Constitution is the federal government authorized to be involved in the export credit business (a business, by the way, that benefits mainly large, profitable companies)?
My opposition to the Bank, in other words, is at a more fundamental level. On an empirical level—and this is where Gary’s critique is focused—can markets work well enough in trade finance, and if not, can government intervention work better? Gary points to the Bank’s low default rate as evidence that private markets are missing good opportunities:
These figures suggest that the Ex-Im Bank plays a large role in facilitating exports to countries that encounter reluctance from private banks but nonetheless are not ‘bad risks.” Judging by its low default rate, the Ex-Im Bank’s risk assessment seems more correct than the private market.
But I would argue that its low default rate suggests the Ex-Im Bank’s backing is unnecessary. We don’t know that private credit wasn’t available to finance those exports. And even if it wasn’t, private credit not always being available on terms that the trading partners would like does not necessarily signify market failure. So a finance company missed an opportunity that may have paid out. So what? Maybe they had even better opportunities available to them that we (and bureaucratic Washington) don’t know about, or they simply wanted to hold on to their capital for future investment or to meet new reserve standards. The would-be exporter might miss out, but government intervention to direct that private capital (either through mandates, or siphoning it through the Ex-Im Bank) would come at another producer’s or bank shareholders’ expense.
Gary argues that:
Ex-Im’s capability should be strengthened so that the United States can respond when official finance offered by other countries violates the principles of fair competition…Successful multilateral negotiations…are certainly a superior option to tit-for-tat retaliation…[but]…without sufficient leverage…it is difficult to see what will bring China and India to the negotiating table.
But will China and India (and others) see higher Ex-Im funding as “leverage” to bring them to the table, or will it be seen as just the next step in the escalating arms race of subsidized export credit? I suspect, and fear, the latter.
American Manufacturing Continues to Thrive in a Global Economy
University of Michigan economist and American Enterprise Institute scholar Mark Perry has an excellent oped in today’s Wall Street Journal [$] about how U.S. manufacturing is thriving. It can’t be emphasized enough how important it is to present such illuminating, factual, compelling analyses to a public that is starved for the truth and routinely subject to lies, half-baked assertions, and irresponsibly outlandish claims about the state of American manufacturing.
The truth matters because U.S. trade and economic policies—your pocketbook—hang in the balance.
For more data, facts, and background about the true state of U.S. manufacturing, please see this Cato policy analysis and these opeds (one, two, three).
Rising Exports — and Imports — Are Good News for U.S. Economy
The U.S. trade deficit rose in 2010, and the bilateral deficit with China reached a record high last year, according to the monthly trade report released this morning by the U.S. Commerce Department. The usual critics (such as Peter Morici of the University of Maryland) are already spinning it into yet another indictment of trade, but the report contains a lot of good news for the U.S. economy.
Last year, Americans bought $2,330 billion worth of goods and services from other countries, while selling $1,832 billion, for a trade deficit of $498 billion. Our bilateral deficit with China grew to a record $273 billion.
Politicians and commentators love to focus on the trade deficit, as though it were a scorecard of who is winning in global trade. But the real measure is the total volume of trade. As economies expand, so does trade, both imports and exports. Exports help us reach new markets and expand economies of scale, while imports bless consumers with lower prices and more choices, while stoking competition, innovation, and efficiency gains among producers.
By this measure the trade report was good news all around, and one more sign that the U.S. and global economies continue to recover from the Great Recession. Last year, U.S. exports of goods were up 21 percent from 2009, while imports were up 23 percent. In contrast, in the recession year of 2009, exports of goods dropped 18 percent from the year before while imports plunged 26 percent. (Unemployment soared in 2009, but, hey, at least the trade deficit was “improving”!)
Our trade with China last year tells the same story. The value of goods imported from China rose 23 percent in 2010 (the same rate as imports from the rest of the world), while the value of the goods we exported to China jumped by 32 percent. That’s a rate of export growth that is 50 percent higher than export growth to the rest of the world. Members of Congress who complain that China’s managed currency is somehow a major barrier to U.S. exports should take note.
Embracing More of Trade’s Selling Points
As a primer for the new Congress, my friend John Murphy of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce posted the “top ten reasons why pro-growth trade and investment policies and agreements are good for America.” As usual, I agree with John’s points. And I concur that the time is particularly ripe for educating policymakers about the virtues of trade.
But with all due respect to John, his list is not so much about trade and investment. It’s really about exports (one of 10 points is about imports). Informing new members and reminding old of the benefits of exports to U.S. businesses and workers is clearly a worthwhile objective of the Chamber, the business community, and really anybody interested in economic growth. But in some respect there’s a preaching-to-the-choir element in that approach. You’re not going to find too many policymakers opposed to exports, and the administration has constructed a whole new bureaucracy devoted to the proposition that exports should double in five years.
Where the trade agenda has stalled (and where it always has problems) is on the rough terrain that–for lack of a better catchphrase–might be called “rationalizing” imports. That’s been the hard part of trade adovcacy over the years: “We had to cede some access to our markets, but look what we got in exchange!”
In pitching the very same bilateral trade agreements two and three years ago that the business community is pitching today, then-USTR Susan Schwab liked to remind Congress that the United States had an aggregate trade surplus with the countries with whom the Bush administration had concluded free trade agreements, as though that were the appropriate success metric. “We export more to them than we import from them; let’s call this a triumph!” But anyone inclined to accept that statistic as conclusive could simply visit the Commerce Department’s website and see that, at the time, our overall trade account was in deficit by about $800 billion. Thus, if “exports minus imports” is the measure by which we judge the benefits of trade, then America should shun trade entirely. That sales approach doesn’t seem to be in short- or long-run equilibrium. Mercantilist arguments only ensure that every step forward on trade requires a full-fledged battle. We need better–that is, more comprehensive–salesmanship of trade for the new Congress.
In 2002, then-USTR Robert Zoellick said of his new Doha Round proposal for zero tariffs on industrial goods by 2015 that it would “turn every corner store into a duty-free shop.” That was the right message—although apparently not for the timid White House at the time, which adhered to the sweep-imports-under-the-rug model. In 2011, we should remember, embrace, and revive Ambassador Zoellick’s words in our advocacy of trade liberalization. In that spirit, I return to John Murphy’s top ten list and introduce a few tweaks (in bold).
Media Miss Real News in Latest Trade Report
This morning’s report from the U.S. Department of Commerce that the pesky trade deficit shrank unexpectedly in October is being hailed in the media as “good news” for the economy, while the real news behind the numbers remains buried.
According to the latest monthly trade report, exports of U.S. goods rose in October compared to September, while imports declined slightly. Rising exports are good news in anybody’s book, but according to the conventional Keynesian and mercantilist logic, falling imports must also be good for the economy because that means consumers are spending more on domestically produced goods, right? Wrong.
In the real world, that assumption is almost always false, as I did my best to document a few weeks back in an op-ed titled, “Are rising imports a boon or bane to the economy?”
The real news in the report is the spectacular rise of U.S. exports to China. Year to date, U.S. exports to China are up 34 percent compared to the same period in 2009. That compares to a 21 percent increase in U.S. exports to the rest of the world excluding China. China is now the no. 3 market for U.S. exports, behind only our NAFTA partners Canada and Mexico, and by far the fastest growing major market.
The politically inflammatory bilateral trade deficit with China is also up 20 percent so far this year, but our trade deficit with the rest of the world excluding China is up 38 percent.
Yet Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., are still talking about pushing a bill during the lame-duck session that would authorized the same Commerce Department to assess duties on imports from China because of its undervalued currency. A cheaper Chinese currency relative to the U.S. dollar supposedly inhibits U.S. exports to China while tempting American consumers to buy even more of those useful consumer goods assembled in China. [For the record, U.S. imports from China so far this year have grown, too, but at a rate slightly below imports from the rest of the world.]
To anyone taking an objective look at the numbers, this morning’s trade report shows that whatever the wisdom of China’s currency policy, it has not been a real obstacle to robust U.S. export growth, nor has it fueled an extraordinary growth in our bilateral trade balance with China. Members of Congress should drop their obsession with China trade and move on to more urgent matters.
Economists Ignore the Facts in Supporting Chinese Currency Legislation
The Chinese currency issue is in full bloom this week, as the House of Representatives passed the Currency Reform for Fair Trade Act of 2010 by a vote of 348-79 on Wednesday. Though there is so much to criticize about the bill and about the layers upon layers of misinformation, myth, and subterfuge that brought us to this point, this post concerns the dubiousness of the bill’s central premise: that Yuan appreciation will significantly reduce the bilateral trade deficit.
That is the position of the Peterson Institute’s Fred Bergsten and Bill Cline.
The premise seems plausible enough. At least, the economics textbooks tell us that as a nation’s currency appreciates, its people will consume more imports and foreigners will reduce consumption of that nation’s exports. Hence, a stronger Yuan vis-à-vis the dollar would mean that the Chinese buy more from the United States and sell less to the United States, reducing the bilateral deficit.
But in March Cato published a short paper of mine titled “Appreciate This: Chinese Currency Rise Will Have a Negligible Effect on the Trade Deficit.” The central argument of that paper was that our national obsession with the value of the Chinese currency is misplaced—a red herring, in fact. I presented recent historical data showing that despite a 21 percent increase in the value of the Yuan between July 2005 and July 2008, the U.S. deficit with China increased from $202 billion to $268 billion, or by 33 percent. U.S. exports to China increased (as would be expected) by $28 billion, but U.S. imports from China increased, as well (contrary to expectations based on the old textbooks), and by $94 billion, or 38.7 percent.
In other words, in the face of a 21 percent increase in the Yuan’s value, the U.S. bilateral trade deficit with China increased by 33 percent—a fact that raises serious questions about the integrity of the testimony, discussion, and “debate” that preceded the House vote on Wednesday.
China Bill All about Saving Lawmakers’ Jobs
The House is expected to vote today on a bill that would allow U.S. companies to petition the Commerce Department for protective tariffs against imports from countries with “misaligned currencies.” Everybody knows the bill is aimed squarely at China.
Advocates of the legislation say it is about jobs, and they are partly right. The bill is about saving the jobs of incumbent lawmakers who are desperate to appear tough on China trade, which they blame for the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs.
As my colleague Dan Ikenson and I have argued at length, in blog posts, op-eds, and longer studies,
- A stronger Chinese currency will not put a major dent in our large bilateral trade deficit with China, certainly not any time in the near future.
- The bilateral deficit with China and America’s overall trade deficit is not a drag on growth or a barrier to manufacturing exports and output.
- U.S. manufacturing has not been decimated by trade. In fact it has been expanding as American producers move up the value chain to more sophisticated, high-tech products.
- Provoking a needless trade spat with China will jeopardize the healthy export success American companies have enjoyed in China’s fast-growing market.
Let’s hope cooler, wiser heads in the Senate and the White House save us from this election-season folly.
Media Feeds America’s Skepticism about Trade
As usual, Dan Griswold does an excellent job today correcting fallacies about trade and the trade deficit that continue to be perpetuated in the mainstream media (particularly at the Washington Post).
I just want to add my two cents without belaboring any of Dan’s succinctly-made points. (Besides, I’ve harped on and on and on and on and on about the problem of trade reporting this year.) It’s a shame that so much time and energy has to be diverted to cleaning up messes left by reporters and editors, who should know better by now.
The bottom line is that neither imports nor trade deficits cause U.S. job loss or slower economic growth. If anything, the charts below (all compiled from BEA and BLS data) support the conclusion that imports and the trade deficit rise when the economy is growing and creating jobs, and they both fall when the economy is contracting and shedding jobs.
Is the Trade Gap to Blame for Slowing GDP Growth?
What had been a recurring story line buried in the business pages has now burst onto the front page: “Economic growth slowed by trade gap,” the Washington Post reports this morning in an above-the-fold headline.
The lead sets the stage for a story long on generalizations: “A widening U.S. trade deficit has become a substantial drag on economic growth as the country’s exports struggle to keep pace with the swelling sums that Americans are again spending on imported goods.”
The half truth in the story line is that exports fell by $2 billion in June compared to the month before, and that this has a negative effect on overall GDP growth. In our more globalized world, the rising wealth of our trading partners translates into more production in our own economy, and vice versa.
The fatal flaw of the story line (as I tackled recently here and at greater length here) is that it assumes that rising imports slow economic growth. That assumption, in turn, rests on a simplistic Keynesian view that if a portion of domestic demand is satisfied by spending on imports, that means less demand for domestically produced goods, thus less output and lower employment.
That view neglects the supply-side role of imports. More than half of what we import consists of goods consumed by producers—capital machinery, raw materials, parts and other intermediate inputs. Those imports help us produce more, not less. The Keynesian view also confuses cause and effect: Imports usually grow in response to RISING domestic demand. Consumers more eager to spend “swelling sums” on imports typically buy more domestically produced goods as well.
The bean counters at the Commerce Department “subtract” imports from GDP, not because those imports are a drag on growth, but to avoid double counting. If we want to count the number of widgets and other goods added to the economy in a quarter, we would obviously not count those that have been imported. But this does not mean the economy would have been that much larger if the widgets had not been imported.
More Nonsense about the Trade Deficit
It has become conventional wisdom that a rising trade deficit is bad news for the economy. This week’s announcement of an expanding deficit in June prompted such headlines today as this one in the news pages of the Wall Street Journal: “Wider Trade Gap Signals Weak Growth.” As my colleague David Boaz blogged earlier today, the trade deficit is even blamed for daily swings in the stock market.
I’ve been studying and writing about the trade deficit for years, and devoted a whole chapter of my 2009 Cato book Mad about Trade to the subject, and I keep coming back to a basic question: If the trade deficit signals weak growth, why does the U.S. economy seem to perform so much better during periods when the trade deficit is growing, and so much worse when the trade deficit is shrinking?
Think back to the 1990s, the “goldilocks economy” when growth was strong, jobs plentiful, and inflation low. That was also a time of rising trade deficits. In fact, the trade gap grew for eight years in a row, rising from $77 billion in 1991 to $455 billion in 2000. In that same period, the unemployment rate dropped from 7.3 to 3.9 percent.
Again, in the middle of the George W. Bush presidency, the trade gap grew for five straight years, during a period when the economy expanded and the unemployment rate fell from 5.7 to 4.4 percent.
In contrast, the trade deficit invariably shrinks during periods of recession. The trade deficit fell by more than half from 2007 to 2009 as domestic demand and imports plunged and unemployment soared. Sagging domestic demand means fewer imports.
Of course, I’m not arguing that a bigger trade deficit stimulates the economy. I am arguing, contrary to the conventional wisdom reflected in this morning’s headlines, that an expanding trade deficit does not appear to be a drag on growth. In fact, the plain evidence is that an expanding trade deficit is more often than not a signal of stronger growth.
Explaining Mr. Market
A banner Washington Post headline (page 11, print edition; slightly different online) reads:
Stocks plunge as trade deficit widens
Of course, they could have gone with
Stocks plunge as Linda McMahon wins Senate nomination
Or my favorite:
Stocks plunge as Cardinals sweep Reds
Since national trade deficits are not much more meaningful than baseball scores, it’s unlikely that this month’s report drove stocks down.
The Letter Is Different, but the Spirit Still Lives
An update from my post yesterday about the bill to establish a Commission to End the Trade Deficit (now called the “Emergency Trade Deficit Commission”): apparently the bill that passed the House was different from the bill initially considered, and to which I linked (and commented). My apologies.
The bill that was passed had many of the most egregious provisions and provocative wording stripped out. There was no talk of eliminating the trade deficit, for example. And the provision that would have prohibited congressional consideration of any trade deal before the Commission reported is, thankfully, gone too. But I would suggest that the underlying message of the bill — that individuals cannot be trusted to make their own decisions about which products to buy, and from where — is intact. There are plenty of references to “improving trade balances,” “enhancing the competitiveness of U.S. manufacturers,” and environmental and labor standards. I stand by comments about those sentiments.
Maybe a commission is a useful way of distracting members of Congress from actually doing anything, and certainly this bill is less offensive than the original, but it still betrays an unwillingness of some members of Congress to let consumers and firms make decisions without a commission studying, reporting on, and possibly correcting them.
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