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Pride and Prejudice in U.S. Trade Lan Cao Lcao@Chapman.Edu Volume 7 | Issue 2 Article 3 5-3-2017 Pride and Prejudice in U.S. Trade Lan Cao [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndjicl Part of the Growth and Development Commons, International Economics Commons, and the Labor Economics Commons Recommended Citation Cao, Lan (2017) "Pride and Prejudice in U.S. Trade," Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law: Vol. 7 : Iss. 2 , Article 3. Available at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/ndjicl/vol7/iss2/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School Journals at NDLScholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Notre Dame Journal of International & Comparative Law by an authorized editor of NDLScholarship. For more information, please contact [email protected]. PRIDE AND PREJUDICE IN U.S. TRADE LAN CAO* INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 I. ZOOMING IN: JOB LOSS, TRADE DEFICITS, AND THE CHANGING NATURE OF TRADE .................................................................................................................... 17 A. Job Loss ..................................................................................................... 17 B. The Trade Deficit ....................................................................................... 23 II. ZOOMING OUT: U.S. TRADE AND . ................................................................. 43 A. Trade and National Security ...................................................................... 43 B. Trade and the U.S. Dollar .......................................................................... 50 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................... 55 INTRODUCTION We are nearing a tipping point in United States (U.S.) trade policy. Populism from both the left and the right egged on by the rallying cry of the Brexit campaign in Britain, with transatlantic echoes of “Make America Great Again,” has played into nativist fears of openness, including fears of open economies and free trade. Everyone seems to have an opinion about trade, and the prevailing notion is that we are playing fair while the other guys are not. Free trade is out1 and something called fair trade, which remains vaguely defined, is in.2 The sense that the U.S. is being wronged by allies and rivals alike is trumpeted everywhere. Trade now is associated with job loss and trade deficits, mostly caused by foreigners who do not play fair. Much of the corrosive anti-trade rhetoric has taken on nationalist overtones and is targeted against countries such as China and Mexico. The U.S. also has trade deficits with the European Union (EU)3 * Betty Hutton Williams Professor of International Economic Law, Dale E. Fowler School of Law, Chapman University; J.D., Yale Law School; B.A., Political Science, Mount Holyoke College. The author would like to acknowledge the generous research stipend awarded by the Dale E. Fowler School of Law. 1 Tim Hains, Trump Focuses on Free Trade Agreements: “We’re Losing Our Shirts”, REAL CLEAR POLITICS (Mar. 7, 2016), http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/03/07/trumps_rust_belt_pitch_ when_was_the_last_time_you_saw_made_in_the_usa.html (“All this free trade, you know what, it is free trade for them, not for us. We're losing our shirts.”). 2 Meghashyam Mali, Trump Threatens to “Break” Trade Pact with Mexico, Canada, THE HILL (Sept. 26, 2015) http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/255053-trump-vows-to-renegotiate-or-break-trade-pact-with- mexico-canada. 3 U.S. Census data on foreign trade with the EU show that in 2014, the U.S. ran a trade deficit of 144 billion dollars and in 2015, a trade deficit of approximately 156 billion dollars. See U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, FOREIGN TRADE: TRADE IN GOODS WITH THE EUROPEAN UNION (2017), https://www.census.gov/foreign- trade/balance/c0003.html (last visited Mar. 26, 2017). 1 2 NOTRE DAME J. INT’L & COMP. L. vol. 7:2 generally and, for example, with Germany particularly,4 yet European countries are rarely bashed. In fact, the U.S. trade deficit with Germany is larger than that with Mexico5, and yet, Germany has barely been mentioned in the anti-trade debate.6 Moreover, millions of jobs have been lost because of other factors, such as technology and computerization—not trade.7 Job loss, due not to outsourcing but to automation, has been particularly heavy in the service sector, where two-thirds of all U.S. workers work.8 And the U.S. trade deficit, incurred when the U.S. imports more than it exports, is denounced in isolation, without either a broad understanding of how U.S. trade is linked to both national security and to finances—that is, the U.S. dollar and its use as an international reserve currency—or a deep understanding of the changes that are occurring in the nature of international trade itself—such as the emergence of global supply chains and vertical specialization.9 Trade continues to be conceptualized in old terms— single-country or “monolocation” production. But in reality, trade is much more complex, with value-added production in many countries. Production is fragmented by task and involves “multilateral” processes10 using a “global factory model” that transcends national territory.11 This antiquated understanding of trade has resulted in misleading trade figures that overstate import figures and the relationship between imports and job loss, with countries such as China and Mexico. The discussion on trade is muddled and anachronistic as well as increasingly tinged with a nationalist, anti-foreign overtone that is directed only at certain 4 U.S. CENSUS BUREAU, TOP U.S. TRADE PARTNERS (2016), http://www.trade.gov/mas/ian/build/ groups/public/@tg_ian/documents/webcontent/tg_ian_003364.pdf [hereinafter TOP U.S. TRADE PARTNERS]. 5 In 2014, the U.S. trade deficit was $74,808 billion; in 2015, it was $74,849 billion. The U.S. trade deficit with Mexico was $55,408 billion in 2014 and 60,662 billion in 2015. Id. 6 Yet, Germany is arguably a far more pressing problem than any of the countries that Trump likes to name-check: The Japanese economy is a poster-child of stagnation and is running an aggregate trade deficit despite its reform efforts; a significant portion of Mexican trade supports the US industrial base; and China has actually started manipulating its currency to make it stronger it as it fights its own economic slowdown . Tim Fernholz, Trump’s Choice of Trade Enemies Reveals the Racial Subtext of His Economic Appeal, QUARTZ (Mar. 15, 2016), http://qz.com/638695/theres-one-country-that-reveals-the-racism-behind-donald- trumps-economic-rants/. 7 Bernard Condon & Paul Wiseman, Recession, Tech, Kill Middle Class Jobs, YAHOO NEWS (Jan. 23, 2013), https://www.yahoo.com/news/ap-impact-recession-tech-kill-middle-class-jobs-051306434--finance. html?ref=gs. 8 Id. 9 David Hummels et al., Vertical Specialization and the Changing Nature of World Trade, in 4 FED. RES. BANK OF NEW YORK, ECON. REV. 2 at 94 (1998). Stating: [G]lobalization has gone beyond just “more trade.” The nature of trade has changed to the point where countries increasingly specialize in producing particular stages of a good, rather than making a complete good from start to finish. This vertical trade is also what links heightened international trade to greater international production. Id. 10 Made in the World, WORLD TRADE ORG. (2016), http://tinyurl.com/8ydmkfv (last visited Mar. 26, 2017); see also Paul Krugman, The Move Towards Free Trade Zones, in 76 FED. RES. BANK OF KANSAS CITY, ECON. REV. 6 at 5, 15–18 (1991), http://tinyurl.com/kpn7e9e. 11 Global Trade System, in WORLD ECON. FORUM, NETWORK GLOBAL AGENDA COUNCILS (2012), http://tinyurl.com/mrqrbgf. 2017 Cao: Pride and Prejudice in U.S. Trade 3 countries while exempting others. There may indeed be legitimate grievances— against many countries’ actions, including those of the U.S.—involving subsidies or dumping or currency manipulation—which can be resolved using trade rules. But the national gestalt against trade distorts debate. For example, trade statistics are being used to promote an intensely nationalistic and nativist view of trade in which “the most important dividing line is that between American citizens and everyone else . .”12 This inaccurate and racialist view of trade has been compounded by rhetorical and false claims trumpeted during the 2016 Presidential race in the U.S. Candidates from both parties lined up to compete to see who is or has been most vociferously against trade agreements. As a result, trade has become a (dirty) household word, reflecting deeply held national assumptions as well as shaping national consciousness about what trade is and what it should be. Trade has become synonymous with job loss and deficits and for many, constitutes America’s greatest economic threat. This Article is not about the 2016 U.S. Presidential race, but what has come out of the race about trade demonstrates the extent to which anti-trade beliefs have entered the political mainstream. It is true that free trade has always been controversial, bringing out anxieties and insecurities in the general population. But in recent years, ritual condemnation of trade has become a daily occurrence and is no longer confined to a few segments of the political spectrum. Trade has become a toxic word and this distorted view of trade has become the new normal. Although Hillary Clinton favored the accord while she was Secretary of State, as a candidate for
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