Comments on the News

Growing up in the 1950s, I learned a lot about scare tactics. In those days, some people imagined a Commie under every bed, as the phrase went. Only in retrospect did I learn
of the many careers derailed and lives ruined from Hollywood to Foggy Bottom by such irresponsible hysteria. These days, it’s not Commies but protectionists – aka fair traders, trade skeptics, populists, nationalists, etc. – who are thought to be crowded into America’s sleeping quarters.

Almost daily, we get new warnings about the dangers of “protectionism.” The WTO, the World Bank, The Economist, The New York Times, The Washington Post, a host of ivory tower academics, and other apologists for the globalization model that helped bring us to the current ruinous conditions, all denounce protectionism wherever they see it – and they seem to see it everywhere.

The common, usually unstated, assumption in this hysteria is that anything that reduces import levels constitutes protectionism and therefore, especially in these troubled times, is to be shunned. In these tirades, illegal actions are indiscriminately lumped together with legal challenges to illegal measures. But, dumping is a beggar-thy-neighbor action; antidumping is by agreement the corrective measure. Subsidies can be trade distorting and injurious; when they are, countervailing duties are by agreement the corrective measure. Violation of any WTO rules surely is protectionist; seeking a remedy under established dispute settlement procedures just as surely is not. But the press and the experts they choose to cite, including the very guardians of the institutions charged with making the trading system work, use such a broad brush that it takes all of them to lift it.

Let’s slow down and think about this for a moment. Any thing that reduces imports is a danger to the trading system? A recession? A new and better product? Investment in expanded production capacity? Increased domestic savings? Obviously not.

Everyone knows that in the 1930s, when the law of the jungle prevailed in international trade, competitive protectionism deepened the depression. The system of trade laws and contractual obligations established since 1933 have reduced the scope for such ruinous behavior. Some, but only some, recognize that competitive currency devaluations were at least as significant an element in the beggar-thy-neighbor race among nations in the ‘30s. If you are opposed to trade-distorting practices – and I am -- you would work to end mercantilist currency policies, a particularly malicious form of protectionism. Persistently undervalued currencies not only create an artificial two-way trade advantage but leave the protectionist governments with a stash of hard currencies – free money, in effect – to use however they see fit. I don’t hear much talk from the average “free trader” about this practice. Yet, unlike trade protectionism, currency protectionism is beyond the reach of current rules and institutions.

So, as we head into the G-20 summit in London this week, let’s be impeccable with our word, clear in our reasoning, and discerning in our diagnoses. Let’s stop sowing distrust, killing dialog with name-calling, and diverting attention from real issues. This international economic system no longer works very well. It can only be remade by a concerted effort of statesmen of high intellect, uncommon inventiveness and profound good will. The constant drumbeat of fear based on false assumptions and hysterical misreading of events hinders, not enhances, their work.


Charles Blum

Labels: Currency Manipulation, Free Trade, Protectionism, Trade

There are a few preliminary signs that the Obama administration is preparing to take a fresh look at the trade policy that helped get us into the global mess we’re in. Thus far, nothing revolutionary has emerged, just a hopeful emphasis on enforcing our legal rights and a healthy skepticism about new agreements for agreements’ sake.

In addition, there are signs of fresh thinking being undertaken at the Office of the US Trade Representative, my old agency. This will take time, and I’d urge them to take the all the time needed to get it right.

For starters, though, it might be instructive to reexamine the rhetoric and record of Ronald Reagan. Though sometimes derided as simplistic, Reagan at his best was a principled pragmatist. Nowhere was that more in evidence than in his trade policy.

Reagan believed and publicly argued that “free trade must be fair.” In other words, free trade and fair trade were complementary, not polar opposites.

He made this clear in his radio address of August 2, 1986. (The transcript can be read at http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1986/080286a.htm.) In just a few minutes, Reagan laid out three characteristics of his trade policy that are still on point:

• Reciprocity: “Free and fair trade with free and fair traders” was his motto to get the best treatment in trade, a nation would have to give it to others. In fact, reciprocal market access was the essential feature of Cordell Hull’s reciprocal trade agreements that helped lift the world from the Great Depression and later formed a major foundation for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade negotiated in 1947. It’s plain wrong to consider reciprocity as a code word for protectionism. In fact, reciprocal trade undid the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariffs and opened the way to sustained economic growth in the world.
• Respect for Rules: In another context, Reagan famously said “trust, but verify.” That’s why we must not only have trade rules but also be willing to enforce them. Reagan objected to countries that didn’t “play by the rules” and that got an “unfair advantage” by subsidizing their industries. On the other side of the coin, protectionism – transgression of the agreed rules – invited retaliation by aggrieved trading partners and was to be avoided.
• Results-Oriented: A free and fair trade policy was expected to produce fair and equitable results. A key to good results was “toughness.” Reagan said: “We’ve been tough with those nations who’ve been unfair in their trading practices, and that toughness has produced results.”

Reciprocity. Respect for Rules. Results-oriented. Sounds like the making a pretty good trade policy for the Obama administration, too.

Charles Blum

Labels: Free Trade, Trade

Many people think the news media are biased. In some cases, I’m sure that’s so. Far more widespread is the problem of unexamined assumptions and beliefs, a mindset maintained over time in the face of obvious changes in circumstances. It’s not so much a question of misreporting as of misunderstanding the reality about which the report is made.

Take the recent reporting on the decline in international trade over the past year. A number of stories have presented this as an alarming development and frequently included a gratuitous warning about “growing protectionism.” The Wall Street Journal, for example, ran a story under the headline “Global Trade Posts Sharp Decline.” Comparing different periods in each case, the article reported declines in imports and exports of 27 percent for Japan, 18 percent for the US, and 11.9 percent even for China. The reporter asserted that a decline in trade was an “unusual development even in a recession.”

For starters, that’s a dubious assertion. When as normally happens in a recession a society consumes less, it needs fewer goods -- whether produced at home or abroad. As recessions are corrections for periods of excess consumption, such a decline is not necessarily a bad thing. Painful, yes, for employers and employees. Uncomfortable, yes, for elected officials. But reduced demand can be a normal part of a healthy process of adjustment.

Next, consider what constitutes a “sharp” drop. Compared to the swift and brutal collapse of steel, aluminum and auto production worldwide – just to cite a few industries -- what’s so extraordinary about a 12, 18 or 27 percent drop in overall trade?

Moreover, those numbers obscure some good news. One reason why trade measured in dollars has fallen is that petroleum prices have plummeted from their heights. Remember $140 going on $300 per barrel prices? Does the Journal really want us to consider that an alarming development? Personally, I’m thankful with every tank full of gasoline.

But the basic problem runs deeper. The unstated assumption of the self-proclaimed “pro-trade” camp is that trade, any trade, is per se a good thing and that more trade is always better than less. Cheerleaders for the current globalization model have for years taken pride in the fact that the growth in international trade has outpaced global GDP growth for several decades. Trade must lead growth, you see? Without faster trade growth, the global economic pie couldn’t possibly grow fast enough to satisfy rising expectations, right?

What’s wrong with this view? Two points bear emphasizing:

A major function of international trade is to smooth out imbalances in national economies. When a country needs more than it can produce in a given period, it imports. When it produces a surplus, it naturally tries to sell the excess goods into world markets. Thus, it’s perfectly normal, acceptable and even welcome when trade helps to smooth out excesses and deficiencies in national economic performance.
To succeed, export led growth depends on growing consumer markets abroad. When Sweden or Singapore follows that path, the world market can easily absorb their net exports. When a giant economy such as China pursues this path, however, the strategy will encounter natural limits. As the US case shows, chronic massive trade deficits – the other side of the same coin – are unsustainable. When that point is reached, massive export-led growth becomes unsustainable, too. And when export-led growth strategies come acropper, it’s a correction, not a tragedy.

So, let’s acknowledge the recent drop in international trade for what it is. First, a sign of the fundamental ill health of the world economy, both in the real and financial sectors. Second, the beginning of a long-overdue adjustment to excessive reliance on export-led growth, especially by larger Asian economies. Third, a warning that surplus as well as deficit countries need to get their macroeconomic policies right if either is to prosper over the long run.

Open trade on fair terms is a good thing. It spurs competition and efficiency, expands consumer choice, and keeps prices moderate. It can help poorer countries grow and develop. But, as we commented recently on China’s massive stash of foreign exchange, it’s always possible to have “too much of a good thing.” All those who write, read and think about international trade should take care, especially in these perilous times, to understand the fundamental realities of the present trading system and leave the ghost of 1929 on the scrapheap of history.

Charles Blum

Labels: Trade, World Economy

The January 5 Washington Post editorial, “Terms of Trade” Why the U.S. lost manufacturing jobs, and how it can replace them,” illustrates what’s wrong with the establishment’s rote cheerleading for “free trade.” The editorial is a commentary on a recent report by the Congressional Budget Office that had concluded that “much of the relative decline in U.S. manufacturing was due to imports.”

Hardly earth-shaking, but apparently too strong a dose of reality for The Post. The editorial tries to flip the CBO piece on its head by arguing that the “spur of global competition” had made the remaining American producers stronger, and the country as a whole richer by providing cheap imported goods. The editorial concludes darkly: “We hope that the Obama administration helps U.S. firms adapt. But we hope it also understands that no one can abolish economic reality – and that it would be futile to try.”

Haven’t we heard this all before? Of course. Can we settle the argument, of course not.
But we can set a few ground rules for a more informed and productive debate:

First, The Post and every one else should stop talking about “global competition,” “foreign competition,” “trade” and “free trade” as if they were interchangeable. Global competition is a reality; “free trade” exists only in text books. Much of today’s global trade is rigged by price-fixing in the form of undervalued currencies, the targeted development of hot-house industries propped up by subsidies and other benefits conferred by foreign governments, and excessive corporate power over both the marketplace and regulatory agencies. Competition makes one stronger, as The Post argues. Of course it does, provided the competition is fair. But unfair practices destroy competition, distort the free flow of trade, and undermine confidence in the trading system. No less committed a free trader as Ronald Reagan acknowledged these distinctions and based policy on them.
Second, The Post and others should make it a policy not to comment on our disastrous trade performance without calling for fundamental changes in the U.S. tax, energy, and health care policies. Our outmoded policies are not immutable “economic realities” nor are they the product of some grand march of historical forces, as The Post seems to think. They are choices that we, or more precisely our elected representatives, make. Reverse counterproductive policies, and you can expect a quite different set of results. I think I’d know an immutable economic reality if I saw one, but self-inflicted policy wounds simply don’t make the cut.
Third, The Post and others should stop mixing up the long-run productivity gains and concomitant job losses in manufacturing with the artificial advantages given to imports thanks to our own stupid domestic policies and our trading partners’ unfair practices. Productivity gains have been occurring for a long time, of course, and to our great benefit. Even The Post acknowledges that something changed in the current decade when “the loss of manufacturing jobs was especially sharp and sustained.” However, it shows remarkably little curiosity as to what might have caused this devastating destruction of good jobs and fails to deliver on its promise to tell us how to replace them.
Fourth, The post and others should use only real numbers to make their case. The much trumpeted “productivity” numbers of the US Department of Labor, for example, are based on a simple-minded calculation: divide the dollar value of the economy’s reported shipments by the number of hours worked. A moment’s reflection should enable anyone to realize that our so-called productivity gains are a mixture of real improvements in efficiency and off-shoring. The plant that off-shores all its components and now ships the same amount of shipments into the US market with half its former workforce cannot fairly be credited with a doubling of productivity. But that’s what DOL statistics report, and that’s what The Post and others rely to bolster their shaky arguments.
Finally, The Post and others should stop pontificating on the virtues of more “free trade” without discussing our rapidly mounting external debt. Trade deficits drive the debt problem. In fact, more than 35 years of trade deficits have wiped out our status as the world’s leading creditor, morphing us into the biggest debtor in history. The solution to that still worsening problem simply cannot be more of the same trade policy. And if we don’t begin to solve the problem soon, the Great Inflation that will accompany the widespread abandonment of the dollar will do it for us.

Hard-working Americans now and in the future deserve better public policies than we’ve had for decades of decline. Small wonder that so many have soured on international trade agreements and regard our government and our media as out of touch with reality. The next time The Post is tempted to lament the lack of support for the current trading system, it should point the finger of blame squarely into the mirror.

Charles Blum

Labels: Debt, Free Trade, Productivity, Trade, U.S.Economy

Sometimes a development signifies more than meets the eye and sometimes, less. China took an important step in July 2005 to free up its currency, variously called the yuan or the renminbi (RMB), from its longtime peg to the US dollar. Since then, the RMB has strengthened by a nominal 17 percent. That is, Chinese buyers need to pay fewer RMB for each dollar of imports, and Chinese exporters receive fewer RMB for each dollar of exports.

One would think that such a change would produce substantial effects in the real world. In theory, at least, currency appreciation is expected to reduce trade and current account surpluses and to slow growth in the domestic economy. That’s why overheated economies often seek to strengthen their currencies.

In the case of China, these results have been extraordinarily slow in materializing. In fact, as summarized in the table below, China’s appreciating currency has actually led over the past 39 months to substantially larger imbalances in its bilateral trade with the United States, its overall trade with all trading partners, its current account surplus, and – most shockingly – in the build up of official reserves, which have grown by 168 percent as the RMB was strengthening.

Now by far the largest in the world, China’s reserve position is a matter of concern for the rest of the world. China’s hard currency glut is a destabilizing factor in the shaky world economy. As we discussed in the previous post (“The Mercantilist Menace vs. The Protectionist Peril,” November 11), China’s recently announced stimulus package will not reduce these imbalances unless and until there is a much greater appreciation of the RMB.

Unfortunately, appreciation of the RMB stalled out around the end of July, freezing its value at around 6.85 to the dollar. Since then, foreign money has continued to pour into China by means of its trade surplus (more than $35 billion in October), foreign investment and speculative “hot money.” While the growth in official reserves has tapered off, China is stashing dollars in places not captured by that statistic: the China Investment Corporation (China’s sovereign wealth fund), the Social Security Investment Fund, and commercial banks that are still largely under government control.

When China tries to take credit for its ”stable” currency policy at this weekend’s G-20 meeting, it would be on point if someone would remind China of its obligations under the IMF Articles of Agreement. Article 4 binds China and every other IMF member to “avoid manipulating exchange rates or the international monetary system in order to prevent effective balance of payments adjustment or to gain an unfair competitive advantage over other members.” To maintain an exchange rate that does not reflect market values is to be part of the problem, not the solution.

China may object, but the reality behind these numbers seems to be precisely what meets the eye: Its “stable” currency policy has destabilizing effects for the rest of the world and needs to be abandoned if we are to work our way out of the global financial mess.

Charles Blum

Labels: China, Currency, Trade

Here we go again. After throwing checks at consumers in the vain hope of averting a recession and hundreds upon hundreds of billions at Wall Street in the hope of stemming the financial meltdown, there is constant talk about doing more of the same in the hope of promoting a “recovery.” This makes our economic malady sound like a bad cold. In fact, it’s more like learning to walk again after a crippling accident. We need rehabilitation, not recovery. We need a fundamental restructuring of our economy to address the inescapable central fact of our national economic life: we have lived beyond our means for decades, owe the rest of the world a staggering amount of money (every dollar is an IOU), and lack the means to repay our debt with goods and services.

If we do not solve this problem and make ourselves fit for international competition again, the dollar will lose its value and we’ll have to balance our lopsided accounts through a massive inflation. Americans will “enjoy” a lower standard of living. However richly deserved, this sort of economic purgatory won’t be pleasant.

Yet that is the default setting for a debtor society. If we want to avoid it, we need to get back to basics:

• The central problem in our economy is a chronic lack of investment. Not in stocks, bonds, derivatives or any other paper asset. Not in existing assets. In new productive assets.
• With more such investment, we can expand our domestic production of services and especially goods.
• With expanded production, we can increase our exports. This should always be considered in net terms: that is, it is just as valuable to replace imports with domestically produced goods (think energy) as it is to ship surplus goods abroad. The cheerleaders for the mindless process of “competitive liberalization” -- one faulty “free trade” deal after another – value increased exports but seem to regard any effort to reduce imports as an unattainable or even undesirable goal. They are wrong.
• With increased net exports, we would require less borrowing from abroad. Eventually, increased savings in this country can help reverse the flow of capital and make the United States a creditor nation again.

It’s that simple: more investment leads to more production; more production to an improved trade position; and an improved trade position to reduced dependence on trading partners for financing. Let us hope the incoming administration will adopt a coherent, comprehensive national trade strategy – one that melds trade and domestic policy into a powerful force to transform our economy -- that gets back to basics and frees us, our children, and our grandchildren from the crippling burden of debt.

Charles Blum

Labels: Debt, Trade, Trade Deficit, U.S. Economy

When physicians harm their patients, they face lawsuits, higher insurance premiums, and possibly loss of licenses as a result of their malpractice. When Wall Street wizards build a Ponzi scheme of worthless assets, some of them at least stand to lose their bonuses, their jobs and even their companies. It’s gratifying to hear reports that the FBI is investigating possible criminal wrong-doing at four of the failed companies. That might mean some degree of restitution and even jail time might result from their financial malpractice. There’d be a modest measure of justice in all that.

But when it comes to economics, bad advice seems to go unpunished. Throughout the Wall Street meltdown, an opinion piece published September 10 in the Washington Times has been gnawing at me. The article in question, “Another Nonproblem,” was penned by Richard Rahn, Ph.D., a regular contributor to that paper’s op ed page. Rahn is a senior fellow at The Cato Institute, former chief economist at the US Chamber of Commerce, and a university professor.

His sterling credentials didn’t speak to me as loudly as his argument, which in essence is:

• The United States can run a trade deficit, importing more than it exports, “forever.”
• Citing a study by the Federal Reserve, he bases this startling contention on one statistic: “U.S. investment in other countries receives, on average, a higher rate of return (because more of it is in equities) than foreign investment does in the United States (because more of it is in bonds).”
• Thus, he concludes: “As long as the United States is politically and economically more stable than many other countries, the trade deficit can persist without doing any damage to the U.S. economy – for many decades or even centuries. [emphasis mine] So drop this from your list of worries.”

Now, Dr. Rahn wrote his opinion without once mentioning “China,” “renminbi,” or even “debt.” Instead, he makes a lot of the aggregate “net asset position” of US citizens. In his view, our net asset deficit – debt in straight talk -- is “only” $2.5 trillion or 17 percent of GDP. Rahn suggests that this level will remain constant because the US will grow so strongly that the economy will double by 2023.

Wait a minute! Our current account deficits, which include the net return on foreign investments, have been piling up for decades. Foreigners are holding huge stocks of dollars beyond what they owe us. Every one of those dollars is a claim on goods or services that we can produce or assets that we own. Our capacity to produce is now so limited that we rely on imports to fill our own needs. The value of what we own – especially real estate and shares of stocks – has fallen dramatically. Moreover, we have a chronic savings deficit; exactly where are the future foreign investments that Rahn assumes will be made supposed to come from?

Trade deficits have sapped strength out of the US economy, hollowing it out for a lack of investment in productive assets and supplying vast amounts of foreign funding for the Wall Street Ponzi scheme that has just come crashing down on us and the rest of the world. Trillions of loose dollars are held by foreigners now anxious to do something with them before they lose more of their value. America is ripe for a fire sale. It’s a question of “confidence” in America, says Dr. Rahn. Does that mean confidence in Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns, AIG, Lehman Brothers? Just whom are foreigners with ready cash supposed to trust now?

Should we place our confidence in economists trading in snake oil? Not me. They are prescribing more of what’s been ailing us – for centuries to come. So, caveat lector. The stuff in this bottle surely won’t cure you, but it might kill you – not in a matter of centuries, either, but any day, week or month now.

Charles Blum

Labels: Trade, Trade Deficit, U.S. Economy

In rereading John McCain's June 3 speech in New Orleans, I was struck in particular by one sentence in the prepared text. "Lowering trade barriers to American goods and services," he said, does four things: "creates more and better jobs; keeps inflation under control; keeps interest rates low; and makes more goods affordable to more Americans."

This version of Straight Talk went right over my head. As I see it:

• The first claim is the most defensible. Increased exports would create more and better jobs if the access were real. Lower tariffs are usually touted by "free traders" as the principal gain from "free trade" agreements. But what about the factors that neither the FTAs nor the multilateral rules address: currency misalignment, border tax adjustments, other subsidy practices, unsafe products and processes, etc.? How can the proverbial playing field be said to level if these obstacles to, and distortions of, free trade go uncorrected and even unaddressed? Their impact can be, and often is, far more significant than the barriers that are eliminated. (Border tax adjustments alone create a two-way disadvantage for American producers that averages 15-20 percent. China's undervalued renminbi creates an additional two-way disadvantage that may be as much as double the level of its 17 percent value added tax.) Knowing that I will be branded a protectionist for saying so, the free trade emperor has no clothes. I'm not arguing that free trade is not a worthy goal, only that the much touted FTAs are seriously deficient, sometimes for what they include and in every case for what they ignore.
• Improving market access for US exports does not reduce inflationary pressure in the US. On the contrary, everything else being equal, they increase it. Exports are a "leakage" from the domestic economy that leave more money chasing fewer goods in our market. That's inflationary.
  
• Improving market access for US exports also does not keep interest rates low. Actually, the US has kept its rates low by running trade deficits, shipping dollars abroad to settle our accounts, and then borrowing back what we need to cover the budget deficits of government and households. Massive borrowing from our trading partners in Asia and the Mid East is what accounts for our "success" in this reagrad.
• Improving market access for US exports also does not make more goods affordable to more Americans. On the contrary, they remove goods from the domestic economy, thus making fewer goods available and raising prices, everything else being equal.

What Sen. McCain might have wanted to say, but didn't, was that he seeks to continue the Bush administration's mindless pursuit of FTAs, its dereliction of duty with respect to currency policy, and aiding and abetting of off-shoring. This would be a great issue for the two candidates to hash out with one another in front a national television audience.

Charles Blum

Labels: Presidential Elections, Trade

For all the gnashing of teeth in the Democratic primaries about NAFTA, you’d think that were our number one trade issue. Just “fix” NAFTA, and our record trade imbalance will disappear, right? Wrong!

In fact, the most important impediment to American producers in the global market is our antique tax system. Unlike more than 140 of our trading partners, the United States stubbornly sticks to a system that primarily taxes personal and corporate income. Virtually every major American trading partner large and small (all but the oil exporters) has as a major component if its tax regime some sort of consumption tax. The most common form is a value added tax as in the EU, China and Mexico. Other countries, notably Canada, rely on sales taxes.

Whatever the form, these consumption taxes have one thing in common. Under international trade rules, they are “border adjustable.” That is, they are applied to imports at the same rate as to domestically produced goods, and they may be and usually are rebated on exports. Typically, the border adjustment runs in the range of 15 – 25 percent. Ten percent here, five percent there; pretty soon, you’re talking about real money, as a former senator from Illinois might have put it.

Since the US declines to adjust its tax system, it is by choice a loser in international trade. We have decided not to join ‘em, so they beat us. We seem to insist on doing poorly as a trading nation.

By comparison, most international trade negotiations and most trade disputes involve factors a lot less significant than the disparity in taxes. In fact, our “free trade” agreements are silent on border tax adjustments, leaving our trading partners free to increase their advantage not just while negotiating but even after the agreement is in place.

What’s wrong with Americans? Why is there no sense of outrage at this huge self-inflicted wound? Part of the answer can be found in our “silo” concept of economic policy-making. We have no sense of national purpose or strategy when it comes to economics and trade. Tax people do taxes; trade people do trade. Never the twain shall meet, apparently.

If you think we’ve paid too high a price for too long for silo government, feel free to join in a discussion this Thursday May 8^th with Yale Law Prof. Michael Graetz. He has a plan for a “competitive tax” system that I like a lot. He’ll be addressing the Coalition for a Prosperous America Issues Forum (which I chair) from 10:30 until noon EDT. Contact IAS at iasg@erols.com or 202-393-8600 if you want to be there in person or join or Webinar. You trade people will be glad you did!

Charles Blum

Labels: Tax, Trade

Yesterday in Ohio, John McCain corrected a questioner who termed NAFTA a “bad four letters.” That earned a laugh for the senator, but no one challenged him when he said: “The answer to our problems is not the siren song of protectionism.” If you want to smear a proposal or an opponent these days, all you have to do is deploy that nine letter version of a four letter word. No need to discuss much after that.

Well, wait a minute. I don’t for a minute subscribe to anything that I consider to be “protectionist.” But I’m not running for president, so I think it’s McCain who needs to be pressed to explain what he means. Why doesn’t the traveling press corps ask the senator what he means? Is it “protectionist” to:

• Enforce the nation’s trade laws as each president swears he will?
• Seek redress whenever US rights under WTO and other international agreements are violated?
• Resist mercantilist practices such as persistent currency undervaluation?
• Seek an end to all trade-distorting subsidy practices, perhaps by tabling a proposal for end game of the Doha negotiations?
• Rejecting further special interest provisions that hide under the mantle of “free trade”?

I’m sure voters everywhere would be interested in some “straight talk” on this subject. Instead of just telling us that lost jobs are not coming back, why not spend a little time and effort to inform the citizenry as to the steps that you would take to ensure that their “second chance” at the American Dream will be more promising than their first one?

I’m with Sen. Sherrod Brown who wrote in an op ed in today’s Wall Street Journal: “Let’s stop accusing one another of being protectionist. And let us agree that U.S. trade policy – writing the rules of globalization to protect our national interests and our communities – is worthy of vigorous national debate.”

Charles Blum

Labels: Presidential Elections, Trade