The Daily Caller

The Daily Caller
Opinion

Free trade agreements would jumpstart jobs

8:57 AM 05/25/2011
Jay Timmons
CEO, National Association of Manufacturers

Congress turns to trade this week, with two hearings on pending free trade agreements (FTAs). Discussion about the benefits of trade is always welcome, but the time for talk has passed. It is time for President Obama to send Congress the Colombia, Panama and South Korea FTAs for swift approval.

The longer the United States waits, the more market share U.S. manufacturers will lose to overseas competitors. The pending trade agreements enhance our ability to compete by removing tariff barriers and dismantling regulatory and non-tariff barriers that prevent our companies from fully realizing their export potential.

The agreements present great opportunities to U.S. manufacturers, which currently export more than $48 billion annually to Colombia, Panama and South Korea. Those that export goods to those countries will see higher profit margins and new markets opened to them. The International Trade Commission (ITC) estimates our export growth arising from this agreement will be strong, immediate, and lasting: an additional $12 billion annually in exports will result from approval of the three agreements. The effects will ripple through our economy, creating 100,000 new jobs, according to the ITC.

Or the U.S. can continue to delay and remain on the sidelines as we have since 2007. Our competitors have raced ahead, signing dozens of trade agreements that give their manufacturers a huge competitive edge over U.S. manufacturers. The EU-Korea and Canada-Colombia agreements, for example, take effect on July 1. This means that our competitors will begin to enjoy preferential access and duty-free treatment of their products, while U.S. exports will face tariffs that price our goods far above theirs. This disparity can have a significant impact on our economy. The U.S. accumulated a manufactured goods trade surplus with our existing trade agreement partners of nearly $70 billion over the past three years — while over that same period of time we had a manufactured goods deficit of more than $1 trillion with countries with which we don’t have trade agreements.

Given the unprecedented bipartisan agreement on the importance of exports and jobs, manufacturers are confident that the president and Congress will move forward on these agreements to level the playing field. In fact, manufacturers are participating in the Senate Finance Committee hearings this week to make the case on behalf of their employees and consumers. Two-thirds of our country’s total exports of goods and services are manufactured goods, and manufacturers are ready to expand into global markets.

The pending trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea offer our elected officials a choice — support economic expansion and job growth or retreat from the world economy and watch U.S. manufacturing stagnate as our foreign competitors thrive. U.S. manufacturers are eager to remove the burdens on trade and grow their businesses.

Jay Timmons is the president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers.

Tags: Economics, Free trade, Manufacturing

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  • California7

    Great op-ed. Passing these agreements seems like a no-brainer.

  • Gridmark

    Yeah, we heard from Bush and he said “free trade is good” while the factories closed. 57,000 factories closed and 6 million jobs lost over the past decade. And there is nothing to replace that, that provided middle class wages. Let us not forget, there is an added 2 billion cheap laborers that entered the workforce. And that means less jobs and less in wages. The factories in my town will not be exporting as they are closed. And it also means less money for the cities, states, the federal government, and for the social programs. And it also means more in spending for welfare or other benefits. You people control Washington and people are out of work. Great job. Tell me something new.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Conor-McCartney/16802823 Conor McCartney

      I remember when people used to argue that the car was going to be a great revolution. But my great great grandfather’s horse and buggy business went bankrupt because of Henry Ford. It Cost us jobs!!!!!

      • Gridmark

        Evidently you did not add up the 57,000 factories that are closed and six million jobs. So I ask, where are the jobs? And this happened over the past decade. And also, you have to add that there are some 2 billion people that are added to the jobs market, therefore, it means less in jobs or less in pay. Deficits and debt is going up and only 45% of the tax payers are paying taxes. It is not working. And it really is amazing, that after years of tax cuts, that we have all these lost jobs. The globalists, republicans, and the democrats have lost all credibility. Now, if you want to create jobs, then you have to invest in your country, in your people, and in the future. Which is something we have not done for some 30 years.

    • stoopdavydave
      • Gridmark

        You cannot be that stupid. Our soldiers were slaughtered. I watched the quagmire for years. Everyone was waiting for Bush to do something and nothing was being done. Bush only had 170,000 troops and compare that to his father who had 500,000 troops to secure one war. And Bush abandoned Afghanistan for his war with Iraq. And none of your spin matters, because that is what happened.

        • stoopdavydave

          You claimed that U.S. troops got “slaughtered,” and have tried, twice now, to support that claim with deployment statistics. That doesn’t work, for the obvious reason. What you need are casualty statistics. So I helpfully looked them up. Oh! Here they are again…

          Me @ earlier:
          ***Our troops won, in Iraq, and they did so with the LOWEST body count of ANY war of comparable size, or even lots of smaller wars, so you can pretty much stop the snivelling about them being “slaughtered.” He [G.W.Bush]never paid for the wars, but then neither has his successor. In two and a quarter years, he’s ended neither of these wars NOR paid for them.***

          Gridmark @ 10:56 AM 05/23/2011 :
          G: ” Bush 41 had the Gulf war. It was one war with 500,000 coalition troops and he had the wars paid for with our allies paying.”

          This is your “war of comparable size”? Okay then, (a) how long did it last and (b) how many were “slaughtered” and (c) what casualty rate does that give you? Never mind, here’s the math:
          Gulf War: August 2, 1990 – February 28, 1991 equals 7 months.
          (U.S. plus coalition military casualties, from all causes) = 148 U.S. combat, plus 145 U.S. accidental, plus 94 coalition equals 387 total.
          387 “slaughtered” / 7 months = 55 per month.
          Iraq War: March 20, 2003 – ongoing, equals 98 months and counting.
          (U.S. plus coalition military casualties, from all causes) = 4432 U.S. + 179 U.K. + 139 other = 4750 total.
          4750 “slaughtered” / 98 months = 49 per month.
          My claim stands.

          • Gridmark

            Again. Bush did not have the borders secure. It ended up we were fighting the Taliban, Iraqis, Al Qaeda, Syrians, and Iranians. Bush did not have enough soldiers. It was so bad that Congressman Murtha and others were screaming for the president to do something. And it was years of “stay the course.” I sat and watched for years for Bush to do something and he did not do it. It was a quagmire, just as predicted. And if his father had 500,000 coalition troops for one war, and Bush only had 170,000 troops for two war-then that tells you something. Do not compare this to other wars. That is spinning. Look at the war, how it was managed, and the quagmire itself.

        • stoopdavydave

          So it looks to me like your definition of “spin” matches my definition of “shows his work.” But wait, there’s more …

          G: ” And Bush 43 only had 170,000 troops for two wars. It was estimated by the Bush administration that the cost of the war would cost 50 billion dollars and ended up to be one trillion dollars. Bush ignored the quagmire in Iraq for years while our troops were being slaughtered.”

          That’s three true statements followed by a ridiculous whopper. Unless your definition of “ignored” is as disingenuously wack as your definition of (…) “slaughtered.”
          Know who got “slaughtered”?
          The Baathist Iraqi army, both times (not less than 20,000) (*), plus (not less than 13,500 and not more than 45,000) (**), plus 25,278 “insurgents”) (***) Sources:
          * Robert Fisk, The Great War For Civilisation; The Conquest of the Middle East (Fourth Estate, 2005), p.853. [Fisk famously loathes Bush.]
          ** Jonathan Steele, (May 28, 2003). “Body counts”. The Guardian (London). [And we all know how The Guardian just looooooved G.W.Bush, right?]
          *** Wikipedia, quoting six different sources.

          Why do I belabor this?
          Because “slaughtered” is what happens to LOSERS, which U.S. and coalition forces are NOT.

          • Gridmark

            I watched for years and wondered why nothing was getting done. I call it a slaughter, you call it that Bush was monitoring and visiting the troops. Anyway you look at it, Bush never had enough troops and soldiers were killed needlessly.

      • Gridmark

        ***Except for continuously monitoring the wars and intermittently surprise-visiting the troops in the field, he “neglected” the wars, yuh-huh.
        And if you want to claim that he “neglected” the economy, then you’re letting him off the hook for T.A.R.P., and some other stupendous blunders, so you should probably rethink that, too.
        More later. Sorry to be late with this but some inconvenient events got in my way.
        - Stoop***

        “Monitoring the wars?” Wow. 2004, 2005, 2006- a quagmire. He did not have enough troops. Either get out of war or have a draft and win the war. Don’t sit back and watch our soldiers die. The borders were not secure. Bush was in over his head. We did not know who we were fighting. Iraqis, Al Qaeda, Taliban, Syrians, and Iranians.

        Tarp was at the end of his administration when the country was in trouble. What about the years before of deficits and debt, with factories closing, and we still continue on with the neglect of the infrastructure, and what to do with globalization. Even Obama is being controlled by the globalists. Remember, “stay the course” and “deficits don’t matter.” Too bad it did not all trickle down-it did not.

    • stoopdavydave

      Grid:
      “Yeah, we heard from Bush and he said “free trade is good” while the factories closed.”

      I wonder where he got that idea.
      Oh, wait, no I don’t.
      “In his popular writing, Paul Krugman is at his best when defending free trade. My favorite is example is his “Ricardo’s Difficult Idea,” published in the mid-1990s, in which he shares a frustration many of us economists have felt — that the vast majority of noneconomist intellectuals don’t understand David Ricardo’s famous insight about free trade almost 200 years ago.”
      http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122394373157731081.html

      • Gridmark

        I do not agree with Krugman on free trade. In fact, I don’t agree with Obama, Bush, or Clinton on free trade. It has not worked yet, unless you want to destroy the middle class. The globalists are running the show. You can show me a lot of republicans that want to subsidize corn for ethanol. It is bad policy. The problem with Washington, is that they go on with bad policies and they never fix them.

        Veronique De Rugy, economist from George Mason univ, on C-span, says “It is good for our jobs to go overseas and Wal Mart is hiring a lot of people.

        Carlos Gutierrez, former Bush Commerce Secretary, likewise supported free trade

        William Cohen, former Defense Secretary, on C-span, “we will trade with India.” Now why would we trade with India when we don’t make the Irons and toasters.

        C. Fred Bergsten, former senior fellow at Brookings, “we need a lower dollar to trade and export to China…..”

        Obama “we will trade with our high end products.” Of course, he left out the closed 57,000 factories.

        It is clear, the globalists are running the show. It is Wall Street, ‘economists’, and the Larry Kudlows and the author pushing this stuff and we have not prepared for free trade. We did not invest in our country, in our people, and in the future. We sit here with the democrats spending more, with republicans wanting more tax cuts, with the fed printing money, with the states wanting casinos for every state for jobs, all the while we keep sending jobs overseas. I have said this repeatedly. Bush “stayed the course” and Obama is spending. But the problem with republicans is that it is the same robotic remarks and they support free trade and the democrats are dumb enough to go along with it. It is still 2 billion cheap laborers who entered the free market system and it is destroying the middle class.

        • stoopdavydave

          I’ve said as many nice things (that is, “almost one”) about Krugman as I can stand to, but he certainly was right about that one thing. And there’s nothing, no objection, no criticism, no argument in your comment here that he didn’t anticipate and refute, completely. How do I know? Because there’s nothing in your comment that wasn’t anticipated in 1815 by David Ricardo. Nothing.
          So, that frees up some time to visit your seventeen … um, theorems, or whatever they are.
          Where were we? Ah, yes:
          http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/20/trumka-issues-threat-to-dems-help-us-or-pay/comment-page-4/#comment-492566

          • Gridmark

            I would prefer an activist government to fix our problems and not a pacifist one in which our problems are ignored. And what we see today is the result of problems being ignored either by democrats or by republicans. We have globalization, 57,000 factories are closed, and six million jobs lost. And you have offered nothing to fix those problems. Unless, of course, you believe in lowering the wages and benefits of the middle class, because that is your only solution. Many countries invest in their own countries and it is not fascism. It is preparing and competing in the world of globalization. “Staying the course” is the most moronic ideology I have seen when you have problems and they are piling up. I doubt we would have fascism as you say. We have a constitution, it is just a question of fixing our problems it which the politicians cannot do it. The biggest trick is to cut something, but give the people something in return. And that is the problem with republicans. It is the take away of jobs for cheap labor, the takeaway of wages and benefits, and the takeaway of social programs. Give people a future. Republicans have failed with their trickle down in these days of globalization.

            I will leave you a quote from David Ricardo.

            “He supposed that there was little tendency to unemployment, but he remained guarded against rapid population growth that could depress wages to the subsistence level, which would thereby limit both profits and capital formation by extending the margin of cultivation.”

            “guarded against population growth”

            And I can interpret that for today. We have an added 2 billion cheap laborers in the labor force. And that means lower wages and benefits and loss of jobs for our middle class.

            http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/502193/David-Ricardo

            Now, how about coming up with some answers instead of bashing the middle class and doing nothing.

          • stoopdavydave

            “I would prefer an activist government to fix our problems and not a pacifist one in which our problems are ignored.”

            1/ Words mean things. You might not prefer a passive government, but you clearly would prefer a pacifist government. If not, you would not harp on and on about how U.S. troops are getting “slaughtered.”
            . So here’s a clue: people that complain about wars being won by their own national forces, there’s a word for that, and it’s “pacifist.” I think it’s derived from an ancient Latin term, meaning “security parasite.” Anyway, people with “pacifist” preferences also tend to prefer “pacifist” policies, made by “pacifist” governments.

            2/ Your own words mean things. You’ve already told us what kind of activist government you prefer; it’s the unelected kind. Remember? Let’s revisit your 17th thesis, from @ 4:03 PM 05/21/2011, on comments-page four of the ** Trumka Threatens Dems ** thread:
            “17. And finally, I don’t think our electoral political system works anymore. Every candidate is bought off and it takes huge amounts of money to run a campaign. I would suggest a management team or a turn around specialist to be appointed as president for a couple of years or more. And there would be a board of directors who he answers to and for the middle class. That does not mean that we do not support the rich or free enterprise, it is a matter of working with them to see what works.The parties are riddled with failed ideologies. We can do better that what we have.”
            Emphasis added by me. Fascism suggested by you.

            3/ Words already mean things, and you don’t get to redefine them for expedience, or out of ignorance, or for whatever reason you keep saying ridiculous crap like “our problems are ignored.” Our problems are not ignored, not by this administration and not by the one before it.
            . Half of our problems were legislated into existence BY the government, and almost all of them persist BECAUSE OF the government’s faux-Keynesian fiscal policy.
            . Our problems are ENDLESSLY legislated upon, debated about, campaigned about, speechified, and energetically mismanaged.
            . None of that is the same as “ignored,” yet you keep on claiming, repetitively repetitively complaining, that these economic problems, and those wars, are being so “ignored.” It’s stupid. You should stop doing that.

            4/ Okay, that was just the first stupid sentence of your stupid comment. More later, probably.
            -Stoop

          • Gridmark

            1. Sorry, used the wrong word.

            It is true we have endless legislation. And I do not agree with cash for clunkers, extension of unemployment benefits, and casinos for every state as if they will solve anything. That is the stupid side of politics and of liberals. However, on the other side, what you see is tax cuts and then laissez-faire. Bush had the TARP, but that was when our country was in trouble, and agree with what he did there. But, as he had his tax cuts, they did not trickle down. If factories close and if you have tax cuts to create prosperity and if it is not working, then it has to go back to the drawing board, instead of saying “free trade is good” or “stay the course.” And the same with the war. “Stay the course” when you had a quagmire for years and doing nothing about it, shows Bush was delusional. Bush used ideology all the way until he got into trouble, and then he spent the money. Now, since Clinton signed the free trade agreements, we have lost millions of jobs. And most politicians on both sides have said it is working while ignoring what is happening to the middle class. The same goes with energy independence, and the same goes with our infrastructure. All these things have to be dealt with reasonably. Now, the bottom line., democrats do a patchwork and the republicans ignore it.

            But I will reiterate. Democrats are spending money on useless programs, republicans wants more in tax cuts and we already had a decade of tax cuts, the fed is printing money and supports a low dollar for exports (remember we lost 1/3 of our manufacturing), and the states wants casinos for jobs. That is what is happening now, and I find it hilarious. So, no one is serious in solving our problems and our biggest problem is globalization, because with the loss of jobs, you cannot solve one problem. You can cut spending, and it may make a dent in the deficit, if may also help small business (it won’t help small business where factories are closed), but we also need to do the things to invest in our country to compete in a globalized world. Actually, Gingrich came the closest but he brings religion rhetoric and baggage.

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