By Scott Lincicome
Monday, July 11, 2016
Donald Trump is on the protectionist warpath, attacking
not just America’s trading partners but also its long-held political consensus
in favor of open trade. The demise of this consensus is in one sense odd—trade
has never been popular with voters, and modest declines in recent polls are
typical for election years—but it is no less real: for the first time in
decades, both major party presidential nominees are openly skeptical of trade
(Trump outright hostile), and congressional leaders are unwilling to consider
the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). In a time when our stagnant economy could
use a trade-provided boost, such proposals are nowhere to be found.
How did America devolve from the trade advocacy of
Kennedy, Reagan, (Bill) Clinton, and Bush to the divisive protectionism of
Trump? Some causes are obvious: the Democratic Party, once supportive of trade,
has slowly embraced protectionism, its platform and legislative record shifting
from trade-friendly in 1996 to mirroring the anti-globalization movement by
2008. Today Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, almost unanimously refuse to
support their standard-bearer’s signature trade deal, the TPP.
President Obama also deserves blame: his successful
campaigns against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and
outsourcing showed other politicians that protectionism can pay political
dividends. The president also condoned or implemented discrete trade
restrictions like the 2009 safeguard on Chinese tires, while refusing to spend
political capital to advocate trade liberalization policies like completed FTAs
with Colombia, Panama ,and Korea.
Even now in selling the TPP, President Obama emphasizes
new rules for labor, the environment, and state enterprises, as opposed to the
unassailable economic and moral arguments that have supported free trade for
centuries. TPP might now be in force, instead of languishing in congressional limbo,
had the president experienced his trade conversion years ago instead of in
2015.
Give Us Reasons,
Not Numbers
But trade proponents in Washington also helped create
Trump and the current wave of American trade skepticism. By embracing a
mercantilist message to sell trade agreements, one that touts every deal by
noting only its ability to generate American exports and trade surpluses, these
groups fuel prevalent protectionist myths that imports shrink the economy and
cost jobs, and that the trade balance is handy scoreboard for gauging U.S.
policy.
At the same time, these “free traders” fail to attack
such myths, thus yielding the floor to protectionists like Trump who wrongly
blame trade for America’s alleged deindustrialization (though manufacturing
output is at record highs) and general economic malaise.
Trump’s rhetoric, heavy on trade deficit demagoguery and
unsupported allegations of pervasive foreign cheating, is straight from the
dusty protectionist playbook, yet has been rarely challenged by timid rivals.
As such, his preposterous claims are challenged by only voiceless wonks,
instead of more powerful groups—especially elected officials—that might
actually affect public perceptions.
Trade proponents also have erred through a consistent
overreliance on economic data, particularly forecasts, to push trade
liberalization policies. Not only are these data boring (a stark contrast to
the protectionists’ gripping, though limited, tales of personal woe), but
accurately predicting the impact of wide-ranging agreements among sovereign
nations is an impossible task because trade flows and national economic
performance rely on factors that often have little to do with trade policy.
Treating these stats as gospel imperils future advocacy
efforts whenever the predicted results fail to materialize (as they often
inevitably do). Today, for example, unions discount the U.S. International
Trade Commission’s new analysis of the TPP because the review of the U.S.-Korea
free-trade agreement (FTA) inaccurately predicted a shrinking bilateral trade
deficit (never mind that Korea’s economy entered a recession shortly after the
FTA took effect, thus crippling Korean demand for U.S. exports).
We Need a Sensible
Response to Globalization
Finally, there has been a bipartisan failure of U.S.
policy to adapt to the realities of today’s more globalized, more automated
world. Our policymakers continue to pursue trade liberalization through only
reciprocal FTAs like the TPP, even though these agreements’ rigid tariff
schedules and rules of origin deter optimal sourcing decisions in fields
defined by ever-changing global supply chains. (Other countries, such as
Canada, have pursued a more logical mix of trade agreements and unilateral
market opening.)
FTAs also can undermine public confidence in trade
liberalization by treating the beneficial reduction of domestic trade barriers
as a “concession” for U.S. negotiators to resist by traditionally keeping
negotiations secret and promulgating arcane, heavily lobbied rules (e.g.,
pharmaceutical patent protections or investor-state disciplines) that give the
not-wholly-unwarranted impression that current U.S. trade policy nefariously
benefits only multinational corporations at the expense of American workers.
At the same time, domestic policy not only has failed to
help workers and companies adjust to disruptive and growing forces like
globalization and technology, but likely hinders such adjustment. The Trade
Adjustment Assistance program, for example, leaves participants worse off in
terms of future wages and benefits than similarly situated individuals outside
of the program, and breeds the misconception that trade is somehow different
from, and worse than, other forms of creative destruction. American companies
are also hobbled by sky-high corporate tax rates and costly overregulation.
Winning public support for increased global competition under such
circumstances is a fool’s errand.
Let’s Address
Misconceptions on Trade Head-On
Trade advocates must learn from these errors to counter
Trump and restore the pro-trade consensus. Long-term polling from organizations
like Gallup and Pew indicate many Americans’ opinions on trade are loosely
held, shaped by partisanship and capable of shifting in response to improved
trade rhetoric and policy.
A new poll out of Texas—one of the most free market,
trade-dependent, and economically successful states in the union—lays the
situation bare: more than half of all Republicans in the state, having spent
the last year listening to an unchallenged Trump rail against “trade deals,”
now view them as “bad for the United States economy” (while only 17 percent see
them as “good”). Clearly, something other than actual economic experience is
driving these views.
A better trade message is needed, one that emphasizes the
benefits of U.S. exports and imports
(more than half of which other manufacturers use), attacks common protectionist
myths, and recognizes the economic, historical, and moral case for free trade. Protectionists want to force poor
American consumers to subsidize well-connected cronies; they must no longer be
given free rein to set the terms of debate and mislead with impunity.
If Trump wants a fight, free traders should give him one.
We have not just the factual but also the moral high ground.
Better policy, on the other hand, would reflect the
realities of the twenty-first-century economy through a mix of simpler trade
agreements; unilateral reductions in trade barriers that enrich cronies at most
Americans’ expense; and legal reforms that strengthen the ability of all workers and companies, not just
those exposed to imports, to confront inevitable market disruptions and to
thrive in the global marketplace. The U.S. government must also be more willing
to use legal dispute settlement mechanisms, particularly World Trade
Organization anti-subsidy rules, to ensure that our trading partners are held
to account—but only after getting our
own trade and subsidy house in order (it’s a mess).
Unless and until policymakers and industry groups address
their failures and make such changes, the pro-trade consensus in American
politics will remain broken, demagogues like Trump will prosper, and trade’s
many benefits will continue to go unrealized.
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