The Democrats’ vocal hostility to trade is starting to scare many of America’s best friends. As Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have bashed China and a variety of free trade agreements, allies who have been yearning for an end to President Bush’s in-your-face unilateralism are worried that a Democratic president may be just as undiplomatic, and unreasonable, when it comes to economic protectionism.
“It is very irresponsible, in my view, to pretend to people that we can disengage from international trade,” Peter Mandelstam, the European trade commissioner, warned in a May interview with the BBC.
It would be a mistake to brush all this off as mere campaign posturing. The United States remains as open to trade as its European allies, and in some areas it has even fewer restrictions. But the question is, for how long?
Despite economists’ assurances about trade’s many benefits, American workers increasingly view globalization as a losing battle against China’s cheap labor and a very personal threat to their wages and jobs. According to a poll this spring by The New York Times and CBS News, 68 percent of Americans favor putting restrictions on free trade to protect domestic industries. That is the highest share since they began asking the question in the 1980s, and 12 percentage points more than in 2000.
Workers in other rich nations feel less threatened. Only 14 percent of Americans surveyed last year by the Pew Global Attitudes Project said increasing trade was “very good” for the country. That’s less than half the share in Canada, Germany or Sweden. Even among the French, who tend to see capitalism as gauche and occasionally drive tractors into their local McDonalds, 22 percent said more trade was very good.
The issue isn’t the amount of trade. European countries actually trade much more than the United States. But their citizens appear to be more comfortable with the idea because their governments provide a stronger safety net to catch workers undercut by foreign competition and redistribute the gains from trade more equitably.
In the United States, public spending on social programs, from unemployment insurance to health care, amounts to about 17 percent of the overall economy. This is about half the level in Germany and less than almost every other rich nation. America’s meager social safety net and its winner-take-all distribution of riches means workers have less to gain from trade’s benefits and more to lose from any disruption.
Most economists agree that trade plays a small role in the deteriorating fortunes of less educated American workers. But as their wages have sagged, their pensions have shrunk and their health insurance has disappeared, trade has become the scapegoat. Politicians, especially but not solely from the Democratic Party, have been eager to capitalize on those anxieties.
Just this week, Democrats in the House and Senate proposed a bill that would require the president to submit plans to renegotiate all current trade agreements — before Congress considered any pending agreements and before the president negotiated any new ones. In April, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi decided to change the rules guiding approval of free trade agreements to stall the approval of one with Colombia.
The United States has an enormous stake in maintaining an open global economy. Trade means export markets for American products, as well as cheap imports for American companies and consumers. Foreign competition helps spur productivity, which has driven the spectacular increase in American living standards since World War II.
Before this country stumbles into a trade war, all political leaders would benefit from a careful examination of how other wealthy democracies have found ways to cushion economic blows on the most vulnerable and make trade more palatable to their workers.
More generous social policies are a far better choice than protectionism.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/07/opinion/07sat4.html?em&ex=1212984000&en=2467aa97e30c4d44&ei=5087%0ASee! If you want more benefits from your country, like healthcare or free college or even higher wages. What you do is BITCH ABOUT THE TRADE AGREEMENTS! It saves alot of time and energy.
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