Obama's Free Trade Sleight of Hand

[harvey007]

President Obama has pulled another rabbit out of his hat. Yesterday, as part of his sputtering "jobs plan," Obama submitted to Congress three pending Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with South Korea, Colombia, and Panama that were originally negotiated by President Bush in 2007.....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-robertson/obamas-free-trade-sleight_b_993403.html

[lbrtbell]

1. I'm not familiar with the details

But if it was started by Bush, it can't be good. :(

[chill_wind]

2. Candidate Obama Vs. President Obama On Columbia Trade

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x619157

April 2008
Obama Vows Opposition to Colombia Trade Deal
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x619157#619176

[Owlet]

3. What is wrong with the man?

Does he have some kind of little devil sitting on his shoulder whispering bad ideas into his ear?

[PurityOfEssence]

6. Examine that premise

This is something so very, very many people seem to be grappling with: given, that he is an honorable and truly pluralist saint, how could he do so many corporatist and repressive things?

Examine the premise. Where does this "given" come from, and why is it so hard to shake?

His legislative record is nothing to hold up as progressive or liberal. Whether he believes in the buttressing of corporatism or just sees it as a necessary evil, what does that matter?

Entertain for a moment that he's the little guy on the shoulder doing the whispering.

Once this notion is entertained, many perplexing contradictions blow away like the fluff off of a dandelion. Makes sense to me.

[txlibdem]

4. this is something I'd expect from a Republican President.

Why does our "Democratic" President give so many tax breaks to the rich, tax breaks and subsidies to corporations, cave on nearly every Democratic ideal I can remember? The world may never know...

[bhikkhu]

5. Free trade is good or bad depending on a number of factors

One of the more important ones is monetary policy. In the past few decades, where all of the usually cited examples are taken from, a "strong dollar" policy kept US manufactured goods expensive on the world market, and made imports cheap. Predictably, free trade led to the long, grinding destruction of our manufacturing base.

Currently the policies are much more moderate and favorable to US manufacturing, and what we have (with surprisingly little fanfare) is an export boom - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/business/economy/us-exports-rise-to-record-as-trade-deficit-shrinks.html. So all year US exports have been setting new records. You still hear laments of "we don't make anything here anymore", but times change, and good policies can bring good results.

Another factor is the character of the trade; Columbia and Panama have little but agricultural products to sell, basically stuff that we can't grow here. We import it already, and it doesn't cost jobs.

South Korea is a modern country like our own - they have a similar standard of living, an excellent education system, and a highly successful socialized healthcare. Its not a matter of competing with child labor, or slave labor. I think the prospect is for a much more healthy and equitable partnership than we have with China, for instance.

Overall I think the knee-jerk reaction against free trade may be well-informed by historic precedents, but nevertheless misguided; the current proposals are likely to do just what the president hopes they will do - and give another small push in the right direction to our economy.

[PETRUS]

7. Why are we calling it "free" trade?

from CEPR's "Beat the Press" blog:

"These deals do not free all trade. There will still be plenty of protectionist barriers left in place" ... "the deals actually increase protectionism in the areas of patents and copyrights, which is one of their main purposes."

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/why-do-trade-agreements-have-to-be-qfreeq

The linked article is short and is in response to these very same deals. You'll have to turn to the author's (Dean Baker's) other writing for greater detail.

[Enthusiast]

8. The President is pushing free trade agreements

leading up to a re-election effort?

Existing free trade agreements are at least partly responsible for the nation's unemployment problems.

A huge majority of the American people are opposed to existing free trade agreements and they are opposed to new agreements.

Why would the President do this? Does he want to lose?

[dwilso40641]

9. These trade agreements

Will be as devastating as NAFTA & the WTO.

[bhikkhu]

10. Are Canada and Mexico devastated? You bring up an important point -

Both of those countries had significant economic benefits from the agreements.

Mexico still enjoys an unemployment rate of about 5%, and has quietly grown its standard of living and a robust middle class over the last decade or two. Canada is in its usual good shape. You can always find negatives, but basically things have been very good for our trading partners, relative to how things worked out here.

Why we didn't benefit so much, and why people have such an unfavorable perspective on trade agreements, is that our monetary policy favored imports and discouraged exports - it is that simple. A country that maintains a "strong" currency support makes its own products expensive, and other country's products relatively cheap, and free trade then erodes its own manufacturing while bolstering manufacturing for export in other countries...

Currently we don't have a strong dollar policy, and our exports are doing quite well - the US has set historic export records all year.

The trade agreements being discussed would put us more in a position of balanced benefits, and would have several advantages. Before you dismiss trade as harmful, you should look at who it harmed and why...in this case, it should be easy to see that good policies can bring good results, and that the president is pursuing both.