General Discussion
Showing Original Post only (View all)Thinking about the TPP. FDR regarding tariffs: [View all]
FDR favored trade but cautioned:
"A tariff is a tax on certain goods passing from the producer to the consumer. It is laid on these goods rather than on other similar ones because they originate abroad. This is obviously protection for the producers of competing of goods at home. Peasants who live at lower levels than our farmers, workers who are sweated to reduce costs, ought not to determine the price of American goods. There are standards which we desire to set for ourselves. Tariffs should be large enough to maintain living standards which we set for ourselves. But if they are higher they become a particularly vicious kind of direct tax which is laid doubly on the consumer. Not only are the prices of foreign goods raised, but those of domestic good also.
pages 145-146, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Looking Forward, first published in 1933
I believe that statement sets the standard by which our trade agreements should be judged. Do the agreements contain provisions that will protect the living standard of Americans, farmers and working people?
Most of our current trade agreements do not.