[CTC] More on trade in the elections

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Three articles below...


http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/03/14/donald-trump-tpp-trade-american-manufacturing-jobs-workers-column/81728584/


Donald Trump: Disappearing middle class needs better deal on trade
Donald J. Trump4:19 p.m. EDT March 14, 2016
Job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership must be stopped.






The American worker is being crushed. Workplace participation for women has declined by more than 3 percentage points since 2000. The percentage of men in their prime working years without a job has nearly tripled since the late 1960s. Median annual household incomes are down more than $4,000 from the beginning of the century.
 
The great American middle class is disappearing.
 
One of the factors driving this economic devastation is America’s disastrous trade policies. Throughout history, at the center of any thriving country has been a thriving manufacturing sector. But under decades of failed leadership, the United States has gone from being the globe’s manufacturing powerhouse — the envy of the world — through a rapid deindustrialization that has evaporated entire communities.
 
The number of jobs and amount of wealth and income the United States have given way in so short a time is staggering, likely unprecedented.
 
And the situation is about to get drastically worse if the Trans-Pacific Partnership is not stopped. One of the first casualties of the TPP will be America’s auto industry, and among the worst victims of this pact will be the people of Ohio. The TPP will send America’s remaining auto jobs to Japan. Yet, Gov. John Kasich, Sen. Ted Cruz and Sen. Marco Rubio have all promoted the Trans-Pacific Partnership — a mortal threat to American manufacturing.
 
The TPP — a 12-nation pact — includes Vietnam, a country with vastly lower wages than the United States. Since there is a small market for U.S. goods in Vietnam, this will be an almost entirely one-sided arrangement as thousands of U.S. workers are laid off and production shipped to Vietnam instead.
 
An Economic Policy Institute (EPI) analysis found that Ohio has already lost more than 100,000 jobs to TPP countries. If the deal is enacted as Kasich has urged, those numbers will skyrocket.
 
TPP is the biggest betrayal in a long line of betrayals where politicians have sold out U.S. workers.
 
America’s politicians — beholden to global corporate interests who profit from offshoring — have enabled jobs theft in every imaginable way. They have tolerated foreign trade cheating while enacting trade deals that encourage companies to shift production overseas. In recent days, for instance, we have seen Carrier air conditioning lay off 1,400 workers and move to Mexico.
 
Since the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed in 1993, we’ve lost approximately 900,000 jobs to Mexico alone, pro-labor EPI found. Yet Gov. Kasich voted for NAFTA, just like he now supports TPP.
 
China has been one of the worst offenders. While promoting China's addition to the World Trade Organization in 2001, the U.S. agreed to permanently confer on China what is known as "most favored nation" trading status. EPI estimates that the United States has lost 3 million jobs to China since that decision was made.
 
Overall, since 1997 — driven by NAFTA and China — the U.S. has lost nearly one-third of its manufacturing jobs, EPI analysis shows. We’ve lost over 80,000 factories during that time.
 
Countries like China and Japan devalue their currencies to put American companies at a structural disadvantage — making our goods artificially expensive and foreign goods artificially cheap. The result is that American companies can’t fairly compete against these countries, whether selling our products here or abroad.
 
At the same time, foreign countries heavily subsidize their products, and even engage in a tactic known as “product dumping” — where foreign competitors will dump huge quantities of underpriced goods into U.S. markets for the sole purpose of driving American factories out of business.
 
The deck is further stacked against American workers because foreign countries — which make billions selling to our markets — keep U.S. goods out of theirs. Japan, for instance, refuses to provide open access to U.S. car makers in Japanese dealerships. These non-tariff barriers make it impossible for American manufacturers to compete. TPP will fling our doors open to more Japanese cars while leaving their doors largely shut to ours.
 
When these manufacturing jobs disappear, the effect is widespread. When workers are forced to compete with low-wage countries like Mexico and China, it drives down wages across the economy.
 
Yet, the other candidates in this race — like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio — have opposed efforts to stop foreign currency cheating, contributing to the deindustrialization that has wiped out middle-class wealth across the country.
 
I am the only candidate in this race who will bring our manufacturing jobs back. I have been warning for decades what would happen if we didn’t confront foreign trade cheating, and sadly, my fears have come to pass as the United States has seen its trade deficit in goods soar to $759.3 billion last year.
 
If we bring back these jobs, and close this trade deficit, we will create millions of jobs, boost government revenue, shrink our deficit, rebuild our infrastructure and communities, and send wages soaring upwards.
 
Under a Trump administration, we will finally stand up for American workers and make America great again.


http://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-trade/2016/03/clinton-steps-up-anti-tpp-rhetoric-klobuchar-emmer-also-going-to-cuba-us-zeroing-takes-another-hit-at-wto-213193

Clinton steps up anti-TPP rhetoric
By ADAM BEHSUDI <http://www.politico.com/staff/adam-behsudi> 03/14/16 10:00 AM EDT
With help from Doug Palmer, Jason Huffman and Victoria Guida

CLINTON STEPS UP ANTI-TPP RHETORIC: Hillary Clinton ratcheted up her rhetoric against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, criticizing the auto provisions of the 12-nation agreement during a campaign appearance in Youngstown, Ohio, Saturday night. The former secretary of state argued the deal's "rules-of-origin" provisions would allow Japanese cars and trucks to qualify for duty reductions even if more than half of the parts are made in China or other countries that are not part of the pact.


"We can not let rules of origin allow China — or anyone else, but principally China — to go around trade agreements," Clinton said. "It's one of the reasons why I oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership because when I saw what was in it, it was clear to me there were too many loopholes, too many opportunities for folks to be taken advantage of.”

The Obama administration argues the TPP rules of origin more accurately reflect the change in global automotive supply chains since the North American Free Trade Agreement was signed and are more verifiable and enforceable than those included in NAFTA. "These rules ensure that TPP benefits will go to the United States and the TPP region and expand the auto industry's potential export opportunities," according to USTR's website.

Clinton's statement on the TPP in Ohio came a few days before the union-heavy state holds its primary on Tuesday. Clinton has already said the pact falls short of the "gold standard" she sets for trade agreements, but Sen. Bernie Sanders has played on fears that she will eventually come around to support TPP. Sanders pulled off a surprise victory last week over Clinton in Michigan, with trade playing a key factor in the race.

Sanders hopes to draw blood again in Ohio, another industrial battleground where unions blame the 22-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement for tens of thousands of lost manufacturing jobs. The Vermont senator on Friday picked up the endorsement of Rep. Marcy Kaptur, an Ohio Democrat who also has been a fierce critic of NAFTA and the proposed TPP. Pro Trade's Doug Palmer has more on the escalating trade fight here: http://politico.pro/22bwPwn  <https://www.politicopro.com/trade/story/2016/03/clinton-hardens-line-against-tpp-trade-deal-100459>. Watch Clinton's speech here: http://bit.ly/1Wjr7S9 <http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=d8b8ea0a79ec2c54694325a4816e16c8cb28d4dcca79bc7a57a742e83a963737>.

IT'S MONDAY, MARCH 15! Welcome to Morning Trade where we're wondering whether anyone's doing anything exciting or interesting to mark the four-year anniversary of the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement on Tuesday. Let me know: abehsudi at politico.com <mailto:abehsudi at politico.com> or @ABehsudi <http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=d8b8ea0a79ec2c5447811c3a75746ba2aeec0389af9cf9c169e1c79b36832fd0>.

CLINTON SPILLS ON DUMPING: TPP wasn't the only trade topic Clinton took on this weekend. At a town hall in Columbus, Ohio, on Sunday, the former secretary of state argued that the government should initiate trade remedy investigations rather than waiting until a petition has been filed by a company or union. "You shouldn't have to be a business or a union or a worker to bring these kinds of unfair trade practices to a legal forum," she said in response to a steelworker's question on dumping. "I want the government to do it.” 

Under current law, groups petitioning for an anti-dumping and/or anti-subsidy investigation must represent 50 percent of the manufacturing of the product in question, and there are World Trade Organization rules that relate to whether an organization has legal standing to bring a case.

Clinton dusted off her 2008 call for the establishment of a "trade prosecutor," something that, along with her argument on shifting the burden for launching trade remedy cases, she referenced in an op-ed last month for the Portland (Maine) Press Herald.

"I also have proposed for the first time ever a trade prosecutor who would report directly to the president, and more investigators, so that we don't wait 'til the damage is done," she said. "We try to get in early to prevent it and then make it possible for there to be some kind of recovery.”

BROWN GIVES CLINTON A BOOST: Clinton, meanwhile, has the backing of Sen. Sherrod Brown, another Ohio Democrat who led the fight last year against a bill to allow the president to "fast track" the TPP through Congress without any changes.

“I trust Hillary Clinton on trade policy and manufacturing. She has by far the best, most thought-out plan to bring manufacturing back in this country,” Brown said at the Youngstown event. “She’s going to hold China accountable for cheating on currency.”

Clinton promised to beef up trade enforcement, in part by appointing a special trade prosecutor to target unfair foreign trade practices. “We are going to enforce trade agreements and stop China or anyone else from dumping steel in our markets,” she said.

SANDERS CHALLENGES CLINTON TO TOTALLY OPPOSE TPP: Meanwhile, Sanders made it clear that he supports throwing the entire TPP out the window rather than taking issue with one aspect of the deal.

“I have a message for Secretary Clinton: We shouldn't re-negotiate the Pacific trade proposal. We should kill this unfettered free-trade agreement which would cost us nearly half a million jobs,” he said in a statement. “We don't need to tinker with this agreement. We need to defeat it. We need an entirely new trade policy that creates jobs in this country, not more low-wage jobs abroad.”


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-bernie-sanders-is-reflexively-against-any-trade-deals/

By STEPHANIE CONDON CBS NEWS March 14, 2016, 8:35 PM
Hillary Clinton: Bernie Sanders is "reflexively against" any trade deals
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has taken heat from the left wing of her party for being slow to express opposition to international trade deals that could hurt American workers. However, Clinton on Monday suggested that her opposition to such deals was more thought out than her opponent's.

Bernie Sanders, she said in a Springfield, Illinois town hall televised by MSNBC, is "reflexively against anything that has any international implication." 

 <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sanders-looks-to-tie-clinton-to-unpopular-chicago-mayor/>
"I know you have to trade with the rest of the world," Clinton said, remarking that the U.S. can't forgo the economic potential of international trade, given that the U.S. is home to only 5 percent of the world's population. Clinton said she isn't sure if Sanders generally supports international trade. 

"His position is so anti, he's against things before they're finished, before they're read," she said. 

Clinton added that she's "learned some things from the 1990's," when the Bill Clinton administration passed NAFTA, "and I've put that to work." She noted that she voted against the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) as a senator in 2005. 

Clinton also explained why it took her a relatively long time to come out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership [TPP], which the Obama administration supports. "I hoped that we could deal with currency manipulation...it turned out when it was all said and done, it didn't meet my standards," she said. 

As the primary season has moved to the Midwest -- Illinois and Ohio vote on Tuesday, while Sanders defied expectations and won in Michigan <http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bernie-sanders-donald-trump-show-their-staying-power-in-tuesday-primaries/> last week -- Sanders has focused a great deal on issues like trade and manufacturing. At a rally in Youngstown, Ohio on Monday, Sanders pointed out to supporters that 31 percent of manufacturing jobs in the state were lost from 1994 through 2015. 

At the televised town hall later Monday, Sanders acknowledged that Clinton has adopted some of his viewpoints on issues like trade. 

"I think Secretary Clinton is catching on to where the American people are," he said. "She's evolved on the Keystone pipeline. She's evolved on TPP... She's apologized for [her vote for] the war in Iraq."

While there's "some satisfaction" in seeing Clinton take more liberal positions now than she has in the past, Sanders said, "Will she be apologizing 20 years from now for actions she takes today?"








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