Trade Agreements

I am very thankful to Donald Trump for stopping the rush to enact trade agreements based on the NAFTA. These agreements were backed by members of both parties. They were also opposed by members of both parties. Russ Feingold voted against the trade agreements. Tammy Baldwin voted against the trade agreements. Ron Johnson voted for the trade agreements. Ron Kind voted for them. If you know of any Wisconsin Republicans who opposed them, let me know. I can’t think of any.

Trade is extremely important to the global economy. We are helped by our trading partners, and we come to depend on them. We need to trade with the best interests of the people of the United States in mind. But because of our position as a leader of the free world, we need to consider the needs of the people of our trading partners also. Those people being healthy and happy in their own country needs to be a priority of the United States. It will minimize refugees needing to cross international borders.  

In 1948 the United Nations General Assembly passed the ‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights’. It was passed, but never enacted. The reason it was never enacted was because it would interfere with the sovereignty of some nations. We tend to blame the immigrants for coming to America. Why don’t they just stay home? If immigration is a problem for the United States, then it is in the best interest of the United States to pursue policies that keep people safe and prosperous in the country of their birth. I’m not sure exactly how that should be done. But encouraging multi-national corporations to exploit foreign workers and children with trade agreements like NAFTA and CAFTA is certainly not the way to do it.

We trade for many reasons. The most basic reason is because other countries can make some things cheaper than we can. If it is because their natural resources are different than ours we may want to trade with them. When the other country can make their products cheaper because their workers don’t have the ability to negotiate a living wage, that is another matter. If they can produce products cheaper because their workers work in hazardous conditions, that is another matter. Our country should be wary of trade agreements where this is the case. But that is exactly what the trade agreements were all about.

The George H.W. Bush administration wrote the details of the trade agreement NAFTA. The Bill Clinton administration passed it. The George W. Bush administration added to it, and so did the Obama administration. But the Donald Trump administration brought the whole process to a screeching halt. For that I am very thankful to him.

We cannot become too dependent on trading with potential adversaries.  It could undermine our national security. The details of the agreements were written without the people affected by the agreements at the table. The large multinational corporations benefited because they were involved in writing the agreements. Small local businesses and the people were not. Jobs were shipped to developing nations so multi-national companies could exploit foreign workers. This caused pain in America and in the countries of our trading partners. The winners were few and the losers were many.

If we claim to be a country of the people and for the people, we should have trade policies that encourage that in our trading partners. We should penalize companies that move to countries in order to exploit their workers or depend on child labor. We should penalize companies that move to other countries that do not have the worker’s rights and protections of American workers or don’t have laws concerning environmental protections.

We can do that with tariffs or outright trading bans. Article 1, Secrion 8. of the Constitution begins with: ”Congress shall have the power to lay and collect taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the Defence and general welfare of the United States.