2020 Democrats split in growing divide on US trade policy

[mia]

...For the wide swath of Democrats running in 2020, a catch-22 now emerges:
the powerful pull to align with Obama in symbolic legacy and the simultaneous need for would-be progressives to distance themselves from the Obama administration’s less popular trade agenda.

Biden recently defending his vote on NAFTA, telling the Associated Press he supported not free trade, but fair trade. "I think that back in the time during the Clinton administration, it made sense at the moment," the former vice president said.

Candidates like Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., join Sanders in being long-time skeptics of free trade.

She vehemently opposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, calling it “a rigged process” producing “a rigged outcome” for 40 percent of the U.S. economy, urging Congress in 2015 to reject the trade plan “tilt the playing field even more in favor of big multinational corporations and against working families.”

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/2020-democrats-split-growing-divide-us-trade-policy/story?id=63217252


I hope that our next candidate will have strong positions against trade policies that undermine US manufacturing jobs.

[PatrickforO]

1. This is true.

Our people better be talking about 'fair trade' as opposed to 'free trade.' I know that as much as I loved Obama, and I did - enough to volunteer for both his campaigns - I did dislike the secrecy in which the TPP was put together, the lack of congressional debate and the ISDS provisions, which I believed to be anti-democratic.

I can forgive Biden for voting for NAFTA because no one has 20/20 foresight. He didn't know NAFTA would cost this country upwards of 800,000 jobs. Perot knew, but he came across as a crank.

But they'd all better get educated about trade policy because working class Americans need some help - incomes have been stagnant while productivity has gone through the roof.

[mia]

2. "Our people better be talking about 'fair trade' as opposed to 'free trade'."

I hope that they will all be prepared to talk about 'fair trade' from the first debate forward.

[Blue_true]

4. Jobs have been lost while productivity has gone through the roof,

because of the increasing use of robots and AI. Job loss is occurring across a large spectrum of industries. Productivity goes up with more machine use. We need to wrap our head around the fact that many jobs ARE NOT coming back, regardless of what is promised. We may get production back, but that won't come with measurable gains in employment.

The only candidate that seems to understand what the future holds is Andrew Yang, with his proposal on GI. I think the solution will be broader than that, somehow the population must decrease, a very dangerous area to speak about.

[riverine]

11. NAFTA did not cost the USA 800,000 jobs. Manufacturing jobs increased from the year it was

signed until the 2000s when automation kicked in.

[Hoyt]

3. I'm sorry, global trade is important to the world's economy. trump is an America Firster.

I hope the eventual Democratic nominee does not fall in line with trump, although I know some of our primary candidates are Firsters too (although not to trump level).

[Blue_true]

5. Robots and AI are killing employment worldwide, not just here.

That is why nationalism is rising worldwide, people see their economic security going away and turn on immigrants and poor people. People like Nigel Farage, LePen and Trump take advantage of people's fears and hatreds. But no one is looking at big business, who deploy more and more robots and AI while decreasing jobs and squeezing salaries of those left with jobs.

[JI7]

6. they refuse to believe or accept it when informed also

[Blue_true]

7. I think that they see it.

But, let me be frank. A production line worker may see the new polishing machine come in, but don't immediately see jobs lost because people get shifted to jobs that are still labor intensive. It may take 10 years for the job loss to become clear, but by then the waiters and waitresses in restaurants the factory workers go to are speaking Spanish to each other and the factory workers have to select the "English" option when calling for service, their hatreds and insecurities cause them to focus on the wrong thing.

How do the issue get addressed? Hillary Clinton tried to talk about how robots and AI had taken jobs in 2016 and how to deal with that reality, but the railing against trade deals by her opponents totally drowned out her wisdom. Democratic candidates need to be clear and repeat over and over that robots and AI have taken millions of jobs and will take millions more and that trend won't stop as long as business can replace people with machines without any concern for the economic dislocation that causes.

[Hoyt]

8. I'm not sure AI/robots can be restricted. A Guaranteed Income is important, but if we

want that, healthcare, good jobs, a better safety net, etc., we better be pursuing global trade.

Besides, it's not like AI/Robots put everyone out of work. Someone has to design, build, maintain, update, reprogram, troubleshoot, etc., AI/Robots.

Those who get the education will do well in that area. Those who expect to leave high school, stand on an assembly line for 40 years doing repetitive work, and make $45 - $80K will, and have, unfortunately suffer.

I think nationalism is racism/bigotry for the most part. If people hate a group because they fear that group will affect them economically, that's the very essence of racism/bigotry.

In any event, demonizing foreign countries and workers -- as trump and some candidates do -- is going to make our situation worse in the long-run, not better.

[Blue_true]

13. There are people that are just racists and bigots. They could have everything

and they will still hate.

But there are people that have economic insecurities and a vast inability to understand the true causes of their issues. Yes those people may not be the best examples of tolerant people, but as long as they don't feel screwed, they won't try to deny other people. The way that globalization is being executed is pitting working people against working people and making the arguments of the LePens and Trumps of the easier for people that have even the slightest predisposition toward them to accept without question. Companies freely move production to cheaper locales and still are allowed to sell in more prosperous countries. Maybe the USA should impose a minimum domestic content requirement on products, software and services like the EU does.

I am fully aware that robots and AI are going to keep growing. At this point, that growth is unstoppable. But maybe we need to do what Hillary suggested, look at imposing a tax on use of robots and AI that take jobs.

If you think that many people will be needed to design, build and operate robots, you simply have not seen what I have been involved with. There is a movement to have machines self-diagnose their issues and fix them and many machines are 20-30% along that path. I estimate that it will take maybe 0.03% of the worldwide population (around 2.8 million people, if that) to handle robots and AI from conception to replacement with advanced machines or software. People will even be able to do their jobs remotely, making it possible for companies to hire highly trained people in poor countries and largely bypass the high salaries of wealthier countries. That all leaves 99.07% of workers in the world with nothing to do but fume if they are not seeing benefits from the deployment of robots and AI.

You and I can hash over this for years, but I promise you one certainty, IMO, if things don't change, extremism will be worse 15 years from now, to the point of people being randomly attacked routinely because of what they look like. We have some of that happening now, but we are not even at the tip of the iceberg of what is coming.

[Hoyt]

14. If it gets to that point, which I doubt soon, we better be trading in every global nook

and cranny because we are going to need every penny to provide for the citizenry. Taxes will have to be levied on production, services, etc.

I heard these dire predictions back when I was carrying punched cards for computer projects.

I do believe it’s going to be tough for the USA to maintain the size of our homes, number of cars, etc., relative to the rest of the world. Hope middle class here can handle lowering their expectations.

[Blue_true]

17. You mentioned punch cards and you see what today is like and that did not set off alarms?

Punch cards used to require a few people manning the compilers, today one laptop with modern software does in one minute what five compilers took 15 minutes each to do, and that was even before the program started execution on the mainframe. The number of people to perform even the most complex jobs is about 1/10 what it was in 1970, yet we have maybe 30% more people and the world can do the work done here.

I believe that advanced nations (the USA, Great Britain, France, Germany, Holland) are on a path where the standard of living is reverting back to the world mean, that is going to create hundreds of millions of angry people that are looking for a scapegoat.

[Hoyt]

18. It's been over 50 years, and I don't think we are close to mass unemployment. Underemployment, maybe

But even then, 80 to 90% of our citizens are viewed as the 10% by most of the remainder of the world.

I can tell you for sure, that a bunch of people are employed in IT nowadays. A bunch will be employed in AI and Robotics too.

After we are all gone, who knows how people will be employed -- perhaps building a bubble around the earth or something. Perhaps harnessing their brains waves to drive AI/robots.

I just don't think things are going to go to hell as quickly as you think, especially if people quite clamoring for more (except for the poor who haven't had anything). There are those who thought the end of the world was the steam engine, electricity, computers, etc. Ain't happened yet.

[Blue_true]

19. We have never been at a juncture like this in world history.

There efforts to have machines fix machines, with some success. Did you ever hear of a train fixing a train or a steam engine fixing a steam engine? Past innovation post the computer always expanded employment. Since the modern computer age (starting around 1978), innovation in an existing industry has had the effect of decreasing employment. The exception for a while we're computers and software, but even there employment has shrank. I have seen IT departments go from 20 people to 4 people, I have dealt with that, interestingly my own productivity improved because I did not have to wait in a queue for help with something modern software allowed me to do myself.

[Amimnoch]

9. THIS, and thank you! Our industrial revolution paradigm is changing.

Electrical engineers/Electronics Technicians/electricians - especially those with PLC experience/training...
Mechanical Engineers/Mechanics/mechanic techs, especially those with pneumatics and hydraulics..

Huge shortages in those trades both here and abroad.

Automation is here, and is only going to grow and expand.

Our education system needs a total revamp to meet this new paradigm. Our industrial revolution mentality needs a whole.. update and reboot..

Go out to any major highway, and just look at the road for 10 minutes.. Count the number of 18-wheelers/semi's hauling loads, taxi's, delivery vehicles. In the next decade or 2, pretty much most/all of those jobs are going away.

Self check-out, and now even automated smart stores that don't even require check out are growing industries.. less jobs.

Airport check-in kiosks. Fast food and restaurant ordering kiosks..

Something is eventually going to have to give. Our entire self-worth based on our job mentality is going to have to change. The whole must work 40 hour (and in many cases 80+ hour) work weeks will need a revamp.

Offices that once required an entire pool of admins now only need 1 or 2 because of advanced computer and software technologies.

Accountants? Same situation.

Heck candidate Hickenlooper just pointed out part of this paradigm when it comes to preventative healthcare technology that can be used to almost replace primary care physicians.

A smart move would be to revamp our school system to focus more on the tech of this technological revolution, and as jobs evaporate pushing businesses to hire more people, but at fewer hours to take advantages of all these goods and services that will be produced through automation.

Forget "minimum wage" all together.. it's a completely fake and fluid metric. Our focus should be on ensuring a minimum quality of life across the board.. if that means 20 hour work weeks that can ensure decent modern housing, modern transportation, modern and comprehensive healthcare rights, internet (this is no longer "optional luxury&quot , Food for the table, power for the home, and well, just a basic modern quality of life guarantee. When you boil it down, there's no excuse not to have these.

[Blue_true]

15. It is about more than just education.

Changes must be made to how large companies operate. I have seen the office admin debacle, there were typing pools when I started, data sourcing specialists, today one engineer can do all of that stuff in two hours on a laptop using the newest software. I have seen ten banktellers shrink to one over my adult like, and even the one is idle sometimes because ATMs are handling most of the business.

Large companies push STEM training but the way that it is used is to pit younger workers against older workers, not expand the pie for everyone. And if STEM grads become too expensive, companies outsource the work. It is and frankly always has been about profit for big companies. The difference now is that news travel around the world in seconds, people that hate or are fed up can find like minds all over the world in seconds.

We absolutely have NEVER been at the juncture that we are at today, and I am not sure where it all heads. I have been against colonizing other planets, but as soon as we can we may have to to avoid largescale bloodshed on this planet.

[Indygram]

10. The issue of trade requires a balanced approach

The country relies on trade and being anti-trade and a protectionist is BAD for the country.

At the same time, trade MUST be fair and balanced. That needs to be the goal. Trade is not a dirty word. As Beto says...the key to tackling a trade problem like China is NOT the way Trump is doing it...but it's with building a coalition with other countries also facing the same issues with China and use the collective influence and power to improve and fix problems.

[BannonsLiver]

12. +10000

Isolationist policies like those Bernie, the OP and Fat Donnie advocate for are not helpful. Neither is a Luddite worldview.

[Blue_true]

16. I saw an ad for a new pickup truck yesterday.

$51,000+. That truck was likely mostly if not all built by a robot. It's components were most likely made in low wage countries. Exactly WHY??? does it cost so much? Certainly the price is not due to labor content.