Free Trade deals are killing our economy,

[Elwood P Dowd]

and Obama's USTR wants Congress to vote on more Free Trade deals with Korea, Columbia, and Panama? 50 billion a month in trade deficits is George W. Bush territory.

http://www.economicpopulist.org/content/trade-deficit-june-2010-50-billion
Trade Deficit for June 2010 - $50 billion

Submitted by Robert Oak on Wed, 08/11/2010 - 11:49 Macro Economics trade trade deficit

The June 2010 U.S. trade deficit increased from last month's $42 billion (revised) to $49.9 billion. That is a 14% U.S. trade deficit increase in one month. Even worse, U.S. exports decreased by $2.0 billion, to $152.4 billion, while imports increased $5.9 billion, to $200.3 billion.
 
For the year imports are almost a 2:1 ratio to exports. From the report:

Exports were up $22.6 billion, or 17.7 percent, and imports were up $45.3 billion, or 29.2 percent.

http://citizen.typepad.com/eyesontrade/2010/08/trade-deficit-undermines-economic-recovery.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eyesontrade+%28Eyes+on+Trade%29

August 12, 2010

Trade Deficit Undermines Economic Recovery

“Spectacularly terrible” – that’s how Ian Shepherdson of High Frequency Economics described the surprising trade deficit numbers released yesterday by the Census Bureau. Bloomberg’s survey of 73 economists predicted that the trade deficit would fall by $0.2 billion, but the deficit actually rose by $7.9 billion – 18.8 percent. The trade deficit is now the highest it has been since October 2008.

The very unusual part of the data report is that exports declined by $2.0 billion in June from May exports of $152.4 billion. Yes, we know that the (anemic) U.S. economic recovery is stimulating consumer demand for foreign goods, so we’ll see rising imports, but the decline in exports is very worrisome.

The unexpected widening of the trade deficit was not included in the second quarter advance GDP estimates released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) late last month, which showed the economy growing at a 2.4 percent annualized rate, but the data available at the time of the release indicated that imports were a major drag on the GDP:

The deceleration in real GDP in the second quarter primarily reflected an acceleration in imports and a deceleration in private inventory investment…

<snip>

The trade numbers are yet another reminder that the status quo trade policy is broken.  NAFTA-style trade deals are only leading to larger and larger trade deficits: trade with our 17 FTA partners contributed $1.4 billion to the rise in the goods trade deficit in June.  Luckily, 145 members of Congress have cosponsored the TRADE Act, which establishes negotiating objectives for trade pacts that would ensure strong export growth and would prevent the offshoring of jobs associated with high trade deficits.

[mmonk]

1. Killed.

[RKP5637]

2. Bringing the world down to the lowest global labor wage and poorest working conditions. In other

words, spreading global poverty to benefit the big-buck players.

This crap will take many of the citizens here totally under... I vote we outsource congress and the administration to the lowest global bidder, think of the money saved.

[denverbill]

3. Freepers and baggers are all anti-UN because they fear losing US sovereignty.

But for some reason, they don't care that we already can't pass laws because of NAFTA and WTO. It should be a no-brainer getting a law through Congress preventing companies from getting tax benefits when they outsource jobs, but it ain't going to happen because we've lost our sovereignty already.

They also don't care that the Founding Fathers got most of their tax revenue from tariffs to protect American jobs and industries. Apparently, the Founding Fathers were fuckheads when it came to economics, because freetards don't want tariffs and they don't care about keeping jobs and industries in America, because Free Trade and capitalism are more important than anything else to them.

[leveymg]

4. This is because we don't manufacture anything here. Trade in services, however, was in the black

and largely offsets the export deficit in goods.

Congress and the Administration need to put pressure on the banks and big multinationals to invest in expansion of US manufacturing and infrastructure. This problem is solvable, if people simply raised their voices about regulating capital and investment policy. Trade policy is secondary.

[Elwood P Dowd]

7. The 50 billion figure includes both goods and services.

http://www.census.gov/indicator/www/ustrade.html

[leveymg]

10. Read that again. The deficit is all in goods.

For decades, the US has enjoyed a positive surplus in export of services, and still does. The Commerce data is broken down into goods and services. Look at it, and then get back to me.

[Elwood P Dowd]

11. The service surplus was only 12 billion.

For goods, the deficit was $62.0 billion in June, up from $54.3 billion in May. For services, the surplus was $12.1 billion in June, down from $12.4 billion in May.

[leveymg]

12. A surplus is a surplus. As they say, if it ain't broke . . .

A wholesale abrogation of trade treaties is probably not the right approach. Seems, a more direct approach would be for the Fed and the Administration to break a few heads on Wall Street and in multinational boardrooms to stimulate investment in domestic manufacturing for export.

FYI: In the 1990s, the Trade in Services surplus was running $60-$70 billion a month. So, some attention may be needed here, as well, but it's not the same sort of huge, immediate problem as the trade deficit in goods manufacture.

[Romulox]

13. So, excluding the part where you were completely wrong, you were right all along?

:hi: :rofl:

[leveymg]

18. What are you getting at? The OP was wrong about services, perhaps closer to hitting the issue

on trade in goods. His suggestion that we chuck existing trade treaties doesn't seem to be the most direct approach to the problem of how to correct the de-industrialization of America.

So, what are you talking and rolling on the floor about? :+

[Romulox]

20. No, your first comment to this thread has been falsified by objective criteria.

All the rest of this is an attempt to distract from this fact. :hi:

[leveymg]

28. You sure have a bizarre sense of humor.

What objective data?

[Elwood P Dowd]

23. I was not wrong.

Here is the headline from the Census Bureau......

Goods and Services Deficit Increases in June 2010

The Nation’s international trade deficit in goods and services increased to $49.9 billion in June from $42.0 billion (revised) in May, as imports increased and exports decreased.

I never said there was a deficit in services. I said what the total was, which combines both goods and services.

Flawed Free Trade agreements are killing us with trillions of dollars in trade deficits and millions of lost jobs. Why can't you understand that? The agreements are flawed!

[leveymg]

29. The trade in goods agreement -- GATT -- clearly is not delivering a trade surplus, and

I suspect it never has. However, the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) continues to "work", if a trade surplus is the proper measure. So, no, the trade agreements are not all flawed, as you claim.

[closeupready]

5. Wall Street's bidding.

No doubt.

[pampango]

6. Please. Europe, Canada, Australia all have more free trade than we do and they are all better off

than we are.

Progressive countries know that trade is a good thing. That is why they trade (including but not limited to "free trade) with other countries more than we do. Their "secret" (it's only a secret apparently to Americans) is that their progressive policies - national health care, support for strong unions, a strong social safety net, and progressive taxation to ensure that the better off pay for their prosperity - result in the benefits of that trade being shared equitably with all parts of society, not just for the benefit of the rich and corporations.

Our economic problems are not caused by trade and won't be solved by slowing or stopping trade. Without progressive policies like they have in Europe, Canada and Australia the economic situation of most Americans will not improve, not matter what happens to trade. With these progressive policies, trade will work to everyone's benefit as it does now in progressive countries.

[Romulox]

14. Nonsense. If EU countries trading amongst themselves is "free trade", then so too Michigan and Ohio

:hi:

[pampango]

17. Fine. If Germany, France, the UK and others decided to eliminate tariffs and open their borders and

you want to not consider that free trade. As sovereign countries they can withdraw from the EU and reinstate tariffs and immigration controls if they want and as the far-right parties like the British National Party and the National Front in France, among others, have proposed.

If trade between Germany and France is not "free" then our trade with Canada is not "free" either, unless the separate issue of immigration controls affects your definition of "free trade".

I would have to agree with you that trade between Michigan and Ohio is "free" indeed, there being no tariffs or other restrictions, though the Constitution gives neither state the power to withdraw from that arrangement.

[Romulox]

19. You agree with me and yet miss the point?

You want, based on artificially limited criteria, to declare Europe the free-est trading block in the world, when, in reality, the workers in the EU are subject to far more protection from predatory practices than are US workers--the most basic being a 25% or so tax on ALL imports from the US, which the US does not reciprocate.

So, based on your bizarre logic, the EU, trading mostly with itself on a "free" basis, and with high tarriffs on US imports, is a "freer" trading block than the US (with similar trade amongst its states and NO large tariffs on goods from the EU)? And then, for the coup-de-grace, you want to attribute the Europeans' higher standard of living to this alleged larger amount of "free trade"? It's risible. :hi:

[pampango]

27. Almost sounds like you're arguing FOR free trade with the EU to avoid the 25% VAT tax.

Canada is indeed negotiating an FTA with the EU for this reason among others.

Since we, and the other members, have agreed resolve trade disputes within the WTO we should contest this. If any country or group of countries is arbitrarily taxing our imports, we should file a case against them. (Brazil did against us and won.) If European companies have to pay the VAT as a cost of production, the rules may allow them to level the playing field so that imports don't get an unfair advantage. If the trading rules don't allow this, we should be suing their pants off as Brazil did to us. If the rules do allow it, we should do the same thing.

At least the Germans and French and others in Europe have free trade with 26 other countries (actually 30 including the EFTA) with a combined population of over 500 million people, not to mention the other non-European countries they have agreements with. As progressive countries, if they thought that having tariffs against other Europeans was good for their citizens France, Germany and others would not keep their borders open to each other. (Of course, it wouldn't do any good for Michigan and Ohio to tariffs each others' products either, if the Constitution allowed it.)

It is inarguable that trade plays a larger role in their economies than it does in ours and their societies are much more progressive than ours. Rather than focus our efforts on achieving effective national health care, support for stronger unions, and progressive taxation, we blame foreigners (particularly poor ones) for our problems. Canada, Australia, and, yes, the EU don't spend nearly as much time and effort going after the foreign bogeyman but concentrate on making their own countries more progressive.

[Hello_Kitty]

33. Regarding your last paragraph

And for the brazillionth time:

Rather than focus our efforts on achieving effective national health care, support for stronger unions, and progressive taxation, we blame foreigners (particularly poor ones) for our problems. Canada, Australia, and, yes, the EU don't spend nearly as much time and effort going after the foreign bogeyman but concentrate on making their own countries more progressive.

Health care, strong unions, progressive taxation, etc, needed to be in place BEFORE we got into those trade agreements. They weren't and aren't. What we have is plenty of "free" trade and little to no social safety net. Just the way the plutocrats like it.

[Elwood P Dowd]

36. That is correct, plus

if we had not lost so many jobs BECAUSE of these flawed agreements we WOULD NOT NEED as much of a safety net because millions more would have middle class jobs.

[Elwood P Dowd]

15. There is nothing wrong with Free Trade if it is also Fair Trade.

The problem is that Wall Street investors and lawyers for giant multinational corporations basically write the agreements and buy enough politicians to get them passed. NAFTA, GATT, CAFTA, etc. are not really Free Trade. They are nothing more than outsourcing/investment scams masquerading as Free Trade. When I ship a product to China or Germany and they hit my customer with a total of 25% in tariff/VAT charges when the same class of product shipped from there to the US has only a 2% charge, that is not Free and Fair Trade.

These flawed agreements have cost us 6 trillion dollars in trade losses along with 10 million lost jobs the past 20 years. Millions of these jobs were middle class union jobs.

What you say has a nice feel good ring to it, but none of those policies can correct the flaws in our trade agreements.

[TheKentuckian]

22. The two are mutually exclusive in the real world. Free trade is a lie based on slavery's lil brother

[Quantess]

16. No, that's a misleading statement.

Most Eurpoean countries have high tariffs for imports. You can't just say they "have more free trade than we do".

[pampango]

21. No they don't. The EU belongs to the WTO and has the same tariffs that we have.

Of course each EU country has no tariffs on the other 26 EU countries which constitutes the majority of each country's trade. Plus they have more free trade agreements with non-European countries than we do in total. And trade represents much larger part of their economies than it does the US economy. So it is not an exaggeration to say that they "have more free trade than we do."

[Odin2005]

26. The main systemic problem with "Free Trade" is that it results in a "hyper-coherent" economy that...

is extremely vulnerable to rapid catastrophic collapse as a result of Climate Change and Peak Oil, too much economic integration means not enough local compartmentalization and diversity, which leads to local problems destabilizing the whole system.

And it simply doesn't make much sense environmentally to get things from halfway across the world which can be produced more nearby. the doctrine of Comparative Advantage is bullshit.

[gratuitous]

8. Oh, just wait

Those side agreements on labor and the environment are going to be negotiated, oh, just any day now. You'll see. And then they'll get cracking on improving the woefully deficient health care reform legislation. They had to settle for less because President Snowe and President Collins of Maine and President Lieberman of Connecticut wouldn't have signed on, and we really, really, really needed their votes, and the White House wasn't about to call them out when only about 70% of the electorate would have been on their side.

[Hello_Kitty]

25. That's it, time for your drug test!

:spank:

[gratuitous]

30. Nooooo!

I didn't say the Pentagon should be eliminated! Waaaaaiiiiiiiiitttt!

[Ignis]

31. I've edited out the irrelevant portions of your statement:

I didn't say the Pentagon should be eliminated!

Treason! :spank: Piss in the cup!

[gratuitous]

32. Damn! Outmaneuvered again

Here, hold this cup.

[Ignis]

37. If they're going to test me for far-left ideology...

They're going to need a bigger cup.

[jpak]

9. Free trade isn't free and it's time to reassess this nonsense

yup

[Odin2005]

24. "Free Trade" and the pernicious doctrine of Comparative Advantage hurts everyone but the Elites.

It is a ideological tool of the elites to suppress development in the 3rd World, especially in Latin America and Africa.

[robcon]

34. Free Trade is an essential policy of this administration.

Economic growth, job creation and prosperity depend on it.

[Steely_Dan]

35. This Is Extremely Serious...

and not talked about enough.