A Yuge Art of the Deal: What The Drive-by Media Doesn’t Want You To Know
Billionaire businessman Donald J. Trump and Vermont’s Democratic Senator Bernard Sanders have few topics on which they agree. But there is one. During a MSNBC Town Hall meeting in South Carolina, Trump said, “I’ll tell you there’s one thing that we’re very similar on. He knows that our country is being ripped off big league, big league, on trade.”
The trade issue went viral in February after a worker at the Carrier Corporation’s Indianapolis heating and air conditioning factory posted on the Net a video of a corporate executive telling the assembled workers that their jobs were going to be moved to Mexico. From two of its Indiana factories, Carrier is offshoring 2100 jobs to Mexico where $20-an-hour American workers will be replaced by $3 per-hour Mexican labor.
Since 1994 when NAFTA, the first of several such regional trade agreements, took effect, 55,000 U.S. factories have closed and more than 4.5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs have been offshored to Mexico, China, South Korea and other low-wage countries. The trauma for these workers, their families and the communities where they live, plus the widespread fear of more job losses to come, are principal reasons why so many working people are supporting the Trump and Sanders campaigns for President.
Despite the rebellion of voters against establishment trade policies, the subject has been almost totally ignored in the 15 candidate debates. Trade questions were asked in only three of the nine GOP debates and in just one of the six Democratic debates. And all of those questions were softballs.
Hillary Clinton was asked in the New Hampshire debate that, since she once helped negotiate and supported the TPP but now opposes it, “If elected should Democrats expect that once you’re in office you will then become supportive of these trade agreements again?” Bernie Sanders was asked that since he had never supported a trade deal while in Congress, “how are you going to prevent China from essentially setting the rules of trade for the world?” After a brief answer from each, no follow-up questions were asked.
In the Milwaukee GOP debate, Donald Trump was asked whether he would rather have no deal than sign the TPP draft now on the table. He responded, “It’s a horrible deal” because, he said, “The deal did not deal with currency manipulation.” Again, no follow-up.
The subject of trade merits more attention in these candidate debates for two reasons. First, these trade agreements are bad economics. They make possible U.S. deindustrialization with millions of jobs losses. They also are creating a massive drain of national wealth. The cumulative U.S. trade deficit since 1994 is $9.5 trillion, which is the largest unilateral transfer of wealth from one nation to others in world history. Both Mr. Trump and Senator Sanders argue that these losses will continue until existing U.S. trade policies are changed.
Second, the next President will have the authority to withdraw the United States from NAFTA, the World Trade Agreement and all the trade agreements made since 1993 and then totally renegotiate them. It would be the “art of the deal” on steroids.
These trade pacts contain a provision similar to Article 2205 of NAFTA that provides:
A Party may withdraw from this Agreement six months after it provides written notice of withdrawal to the other Parties. If a Party withdraws, the Agreement shall remain in force for the remaining Parties.
The President is the decider.
Under the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) enacted in 2015, the next President gets to select which nations the U.S. will include in trade negotiations, set the U.S. trade agenda for those talks, negotiate in secret, and draft the resulting ratification legislation.
With TPA, Congress has also agreed to fast track the ratification process, make no amendments and approve or reject the bill with a simple majority vote. The Senate has even agreed to prohibit a filibuster during the ratification vote.
Because Washington is in such political gridlock, trade policy will be one of the few areas where the next President will have the freedom to take decisive actions with little Congressional involvement.
For all these reasons, the debate moderators need to ask the candidates probing trade questions, starting with whether they actually would withdraw from NAFTA or any of the other trade pacts, and if so what changes they want to negotiate.
Trade does matter to the United States and its workers. Voters need to know what these candidates propose to do. It’s Yuuuuge.
By Marcy Kaptur and Pat Choate
U.S. Representative Marcy Kaptur represents Ohio’s 9th District. Pat Choate is an economist. They are co-authoring a book on trade.