To respond to your assertions …
Trade has “destroyed our manufacturing base” in the context that low paying jobs went overseas, while the United States and other developed post-industrial nations transitioned to service jobs and jobs that paid better wages (white collar, high tech factory jobs, et al).
From the Brookings Institute:
“As an employer and source of economic activity the advanced industry sector plays a major role in the U.S. economy. As of 2013, the nation’s 50 advanced industries (see nearby box for selection criteria) employed 12.3 million U.S. workers. That amounts to about 9 percent of total U.S. employment. And yet, even with this modest employment base, U.S. advanced industries produce $2.7 trillion in value added annually—17 percent of all U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). That is more than any other sector, including healthcare, finance, or real estate.
At the same time, the sector employs 80 percent of the nation’s engineers; performs 90 percent of private-sector R&D; generates approximately 85 percent of all U.S. patents; and accounts for 60 percent of U.S. exports. Advanced industries also support unusually extensive supply chains and other forms of ancillary economic activity. On a per worker basis, advanced industries purchase $236,000 in goods and services from other businesses annually, compared with $67,000 in purchasing by other industries. This spending sustains and creates more jobs. In fact, 2.2 jobs are created domestically for every new advanced industry job—0.8 locally and 1.4 outside of the region. This means that in addition to the 12.3 million workers employed by advanced industries, another 27.1 million U.S. workers owe their jobs to economic activity supported by advanced industries. Directly and indirectly, then, the sector supports almost 39 million jobs—nearly one-fourth of all U.S. employment.”
That’s the type of jobs we have now, and that’s not something to mourn, it’s something to celebrate. Fair trade advocates mourn the loss of jobs that require a great deal of menial labor but in the first place, why should they? A lot of people point back to the 1950s, where blue collar jobs were plentiful, but we forget that in the 1950s, these jobs were cutting edge for that time. These jobs have gone over to India, China, and other third world nations that are developing their economies and that isn’t a bad thing either! In the context of a global economy, these nations will benefit from having these jobs on their own way to their own post-industrial jobs while we benefit from encouraging high tech jobs. In a real sense, this is one major reason to advocate for free trade.
To address your next assertion:
The thing is, this is a classic fair trade argument. One thing that is clear from the outset; when other nations attack us by employing fair trade tactics, that isn’t a condemnation of free trade. It’s a condemnation of fair trade distorting a good market outcome. If China makes it harder for us to compete in China because of their own fair trade policies, the remedy is to push China to break down barriers, not erect our own. These tariffs might hurt American companies expanding.
As for “slave labor,” sure, these goods are cheaper (not always; as nations develop, the wages of these nations will rise, thus raising the costs of the goods, in question). But again, as I pointed out earlier, it’s still a win-win for both nations. Understand, the value of the dollar goes much further in India and Asia than here; so someone making $2 bucks a day might look impoverished to us (and it’s still a terrible wage) but it’s also a source of income that’s much higher than they would be otherwise getting.
Americans on the other hand have a median income of some $53-55,000 (I can’t recall off the top of my head) with 5% unemployment, rising consumer spending, and so on, Americans are not necessarily suffering from free trade.
This is a massively liberal/economically isolationist argument. I’m going to tackle it because it summarizes so many liberal worldviews in one paragraphs.
The environmental standards argument is a fair one. It’s also something I don’t really honestly care about, because when you construct trade deals, I don’t really think that labor standards, environmental standards, et al should be part of said deal. What should be at the heart of the deal is lowering barriers to trade, ending tariffs, ending quotas, and making it as easy as possible for businesses to do transactions across country lines. Environmental standards and labor standards should be up to the host nation. And bear in mind: labor standards in Vietnam, China, India are conditional on the kind of economy they have, which means if they’re still developing, demanding them to have say, a living wage ignores the economy they have at that precise moment. Ditto environmental standards; compliance regulations would possibly be extremely difficult to stay in compliance with. Environmental regulations are not a bad thing but they cost money to implement, cost money to stick with, and they require the infrastructure and framework of a government and country that’s a lot more advanced than say, what some of these East Asian nations have.
In a nutshell, (1) I don’t care because as a free trader, I don’t believe these factors should be a factor (2) They’re difficult to comply with and getting barriers torn down and allowing mutual economic growth is the primary reason for having free trade deals (3) The compliance factor for these nations make it difficult to have these standards in the first place (3a) Without money from us, on the environmental factor side, it’s really hard for some third world nations to comply (4) Environmental and labor standards should be up to the nation to implement independent of the trade agreement, purely because they know best how to do that, based on the economy they have.
The WTO, GATT, etc have been beneficial in terms of knitting the world economy together and trying to create a set of standards for the global economy. The reality is that we need organizations like these to set these standards. It’s very simple to illustrate why. If I have a wool sweater, and you have $50, and we live in separate nations, it’s helpful if we have standards to guarantee that you’ll get the wool sweater on time, that you pay me adequately, that the prices aren’t ridiculously inflated by tariffs or quotas, or what not, that your nation isn’t blocking the sale because it’s in a trade war with my nation, et al.
To respond to other people in this thread, about free trade deals, I will illustrate a major problem I have with free trade deals. They don’t go far enough. A lot of them are political transactions, designed to lower tariffs and barriers, but carving out sweetheart deals for some industries, in order to elicit enough support within the home nation to pass. While that’s democracy, that’s also the big reason why we see the failures of the deal in question. NAFTA is a good deal on balance but its failures, to me, can be ascribed to that.
The major failing of the TPP, far as I can see, is the fact that again, corporate capitalism is involved. While it does many good and great things (that make it ultimately worthy of my support), the failure is that it enshrines patent laws that are more akin to 15th century Elizabethan England (favoring select companies) rather than classical liberal economics (reforming them so that generics come onto the market faster, more easily, etc).
