What Does Donald Trump Actually Intend to Do About Trade?
By Dean Baker, Truthout
[Read the full article on the original site]
Excerpt:
Trump is correct in identifying trade as a force that has caused enormous economic damage to millions of people in these states, but he is wrong that the problem was "stupid" negotiators. The vast majority of people who have been given the responsibility for negotiating trade deals are smart, ambitious and hard-working.
The large trade deficits we have been running in the last two decades are not due to negotiators. We run large trade deficits because securing manufacturing jobs in the United States has not been a priority for our negotiators.
When our trade negotiators sit down with Mexico, China and other trading partners, they have a long list of items on their agenda. For example, they want longer and stronger patent protection for our drugs and copyright protection for Microsoft's software. They also want better market access for our financial, telecommunications and retail industries. Our trade negotiators have been quite successful in these areas.
[…]
This raises the question of the agenda that Donald Trump wants to pursue in trade deals. If his goal is first and foremost to regain manufacturing jobs by reducing the size of the trade deficit, then the top priority should be lowering the value of the dollar against the currencies of China and other trading partners.
[…]
These are conflicting agendas, and it remains to be seen whether Trump pursues a trade agenda that will increase manufacturing jobs, or one that will further enrich corporate America. With the top two economic posts in the Trump administration going to Goldman Sachs alums, the money is betting on the corporate agenda.
