I couldn't agree more. Greasing the wheels of trade will certainly help our local economy, but more importantly it will boost our national economy. It's true that manufacturing jobs will migrate to other countries that perform those functions better and at less cost, but the return is a) more affordable, better quality products, and b) an increase in pretty much every other category of jobs as our businesses benefit and grow from the market efficiencies. This shift would help more people than it would hurt.

On a similar note, we should either a) scale down our efforts to catch and deport illegal aliens, or b) set up a program that makes them legal. The depletion of Mexican labor is not helping this economy.

P.S. It's nice to see you writing about issues other than how to get Republicans elected.

Chris: The silence from Obama on trade is because he took positions on trade in his Presidential campaign, to head off Hillary in Midwest rustbelt states, which he otherwise would not have taken. With the financial/economic crisis intervening, he has gotten agreement from key labor leaders that his jobs program must have precedence over renegotiating NAFTA, etc. I discuss this a bit in my piece to be posted on Crosscut, probably later today.

Democrats once led on international trade. President Kennedy's 1962 Trade Expansion Act was a major part of his "get America moving again" campaign.
Presidents Johnson, Carter and Clinton---and Democratic Presidential aspirants including Humphrey, McGovern, Mondale, Hart, Dukakis and Tsongas---maintained a liberalized-trade stance. But Clinton was only able to get NAFTA approval through Republican support on the Hill. Since then, the balance has tipped and a majority of Democrats in the Congress have too often reflexively opposed not only multilateral, global negotiations but bilateral deals. The Bush administration pursued bilaterals only because multilaterals no longer were possible. The Battle of Seattle, at which protesters pretty much sunk WTO prospects, emphasized the environmental and labor standards which U.S. labor and others have insisted be part of trade negotiations. These never were a part of trade negotiations until the Clinton administration attached them to the NAFTA deal, in an equivocal way, as a sweetener to labor. Since then, as Baghawati relates, they have become a convenient way to block imports from Third World countries which cannot as a practical matter meet such standards.

The current financial/economic crisis may provide a way for the Obama administration to change course. Obama knows we must avoid the kind of international protectionism which led to the collapse of the 1930s. His White House, Treasury and State financial/economic advisors are free traders. His U.S. Trade Representative, until this point, has been generally ignorant of trade except as a trade promoter for his city. His Labor Secretary is an outright protectionist. Her posture is welcome in the labor community but will carry little weight in policy discussions.

Sad turn of events all around. In 1962, when JFK launched his historic Trade Expansion Act, auto and steel companies and unions were among its
strong supporters. Now that their industries are less competitive, the easy path is to blame foreign devils and vow to block their products.

It is indeed hard to understand the passivity of the Puget Sound business and financial communities, and our congressional delegation, on an issue which is vital to this region's continuing viability. Even unions here are dependent on international trade.

"Will our Democrats fight for free trade?"

Is it possible that Democrats are taking a cautious approach to new trade agreements and liberalized trading rules because Republican economic policies generally have had an enormous negative impact on working Americans?

As Mr. Vance I'm sure would acknowledge, successful politics requires its practitioners to stay connected to their constituents -- to feel their pain, which for an increasing number means unemployment, loss of home and retirement equity, unaffordable health care, and no foreseeable prospects for improved conditions. And for many who have lost jobs as a result of manufacturing moving to cheaper labor markets, where the financial benefits often include lower environmental standards, there has not been sufficient attention given to programs that would soften the blow of job losses and help workers transition to new employment.

On the home front we’ve witnessed the problems that off-shore outsourcing can cause for our leading manufacturing industry, Boeing. This alone is enough to give our state’s political leaders pause when it comes to trade policy.

Try again: take a look at the rise in shipping costs over the last five years. Frankly, I see nothing conservative about the trade dependency you advocate. The funny thing is that the Republicans can't even see the conservative movement staring them in the face. It seems completely reasonable to expect people to grow more risk-adverse, pessimistic, family-centered, and community focused in order to weather the crisis generated by the trade dependency we grown enjoyed--a liberal project. Trade only works when a nation creates a surplus for trade; we produce debt, call it money, and trade it--not a surplus.

Republicans don't represent the interest of family and community. Where's the plan to restructure government? Where is the plan for a flatter government? Where is the plan to privatize services; one that sources goods and services not to the benefit of big-business, but at the point of delivery. Where is the tax and regulatory reform to encourage productive activity, rather than debt-generation and waste production? Where are the reforms to restore the natural capital that will be our legacy? Republicans are only relevant in relation to the Democrats. That's called co-dependence.

Naturally, the Democrats are the enablers.

I have three words for Chris: 'balance of trade'. I think traditonal conservatives (Andrew Bacevich) are very worried about our huge trade deficit that is paired oh so nicely with are huge national deficit. This is not a sustainable situation for this country. We are talking trillions and trillions of dollars! So the questions to Chris and Ted is what to you propose to do about our trade deficit? Are you alarmed?

In answering these questions please refrain from the old 100% protection vs free trade argument. Most critics of the extreme free trade positions of recent years have been looking towards striking a balance and respect the role of trade. Proponents of the current free trade agenda always bring up specters of total protectionism to discount opponents.

Bjorn,

No, a trade imbalance does not concern me. http://www.freetrade.org/issues/deficit.html

My main point here is to illustrate that Washington State's Democratic leaders have always supported free trade. Will they do so now?

The sky might fall.

Chris,

I looked at the link and it did not address my concern but talked around the point. The trillion dollar trade deficit means that we are importing far far more than we export. Just like the national deficit there is no magic here - we are consuming and spending more than we are producing and we can only get away with this because the Asian nations are buying our debt (being our creditors). This situation will not continue forever.

I am open to hearing a well-reasoned argument why it is possible for us to sustain ever growing trade deficits and how this actually can support long term prosperity in our nation?

Bjorn,

I'm sorry, but I don't see a link between our national debt, which is caused by the government spending and borrowing, and the trade deficit, which is caused by individuals choosing to buy goods from overseas.

The so called "trade deficit" is nonsense.

Sure, if you focus your spotlight on manufactured goods, our country buys more than it sells. If you broaden your definition of trade to include the entire market of tradeable things, such as equity, securities, real estate, education, intellectual property, entertainment and media, etc., the deficit vanishes.

The trade issue has always played differently for Washington's congressional delegation than Democrats nationally, because of Washington's exports. That's understood by most all involved.

If their is a client relationship associated with any of the motivations for this piece, it should be disclosed.

I will always disclose any client relationships associated with anything I write which Crosscut chooses to use. There are not such relationships associated with this piece.

Re the trade deficit: it seems most of what we've "exported" has been financial instruments, like mortgage backed securities or treasury bills. How much of that do people outside the US want to keep buying, and at what price? That's one of the big questions for the stimulus: what will the interest rate be to pay back the $825 billion or whatever it turns out to be? I think the trade deficit does matter.

Chris, The GAO came out with a report of the Fortune 100 and top 100 Government Contractors Boeing #2... have off shore banking to hide taxes...

INTERNATIONAL TAXATION Large U.S. Corporations and Federal Contractors with Subsidiaries in Jurisdictions Listed as Tax Havens or Financial Privacy Jurisdictions
A

WA Dept of Revenue - WA Legislature gives away $56 Billion in tax cuts, credits and subsGidies every two years according WA Dept. of Revenue...

China - 9% growth in economy

WA Economy - After WWII Europe,Japan and the rest of the world had no manufacturing base... hence WA had a 9% economic growth rate...
Now we have gutted manufacturing in WA, Boeing has outsourced 50% of jobs and manufacturing... yet we list the sale price of each plane sold as 100% export stats...

{Pensions in 1950-60's were %9 of labor salaries now it is %3 along with special pension plans is for Fortune 500 CEO's in the billions... New york state taxes on bonuses of fortuen 500 CEOS is $39 Billion dollars...

yes chris you are old school on export ....
quinaultbob

tax havens of fortune 100 US Corporations .... old school corp welfare the GOP ignored... not a tax increase just top 100 corp pay there fair share of taxes... estimate $100 Billion

GAO Report Dec 08

INTERNATIONAL
TAXATION
Large U.S. Corporations and Federal Contractors with Subsidiaries in Jurisdictions Listed as Tax Havens or Financial Privacy Jurisdictions

URL: http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/business/documents/GAOReportTaxHavens011609.pdf?sid=ST2009011603928&s;_pos=list

Chris, you know what you're talking about. Washington has been a big winner because of trade and will need the Obama Administration to continue the work of the Bush Administration to promote a level playing field for American exporters. Washington leads the other 49 states in per capita exports because of the superior products and services of companies like Boeing and Microsoft. Free trade agreements (FTAs) are vital tools to help American companies compete in the global marketplace. They are structured to provide us an advantage.

Let's look at a few facts: U.S. annual export growth has been double digit from 2004 through 2008 and has actually outpaced import growth since 2006. It's true that we have a trade deficit but in the first 11 months of 2008, our merchandise trade deficit with FTA partner countries was $107 billion compared with the non-FTA deficit of $644 billion. While the deficit with the non-FTA countries has risen $30 billion in the first 11 months of 2008 vs. the same period in 2007, the FTA countries deficit has narrowed $12 billion over the same period. Tellingly, year-to-date through November, the United States actually has a trade surplus in manufactured goods with the 14 countries with which it had an FTA in effect.

FTAs with Costa Rica, Oman and Peru were just implemented this month. For President Bush's Administration, that means the United States implemented free trade agreements with 14 countries in addition to those already in place with Israel, Canada and Mexico.

We live in an interconnected global economy. We cannot close ourselves off to the rest of the world and ignore the rules of economics. As American businesses work to be competitive and seek comparative advantage, we must work to give them an advantage and create jobs by knocking down foreign barriers to trade through FTAs. As President Obama said on Tuesday, "the world has changed, and we must change with it." FTAs help us with that changing world.

Charlie

US imports and exports started declining in September, 2008, and have fallen each month since. With the contraction in World Trade that is now occurring and which will likely continue for at least another year, it is unlikely that we will hearing much about further free trade agreements for several years. When trade starts to contract countries start getting protective of their industries and less receptive to opening them up to foreign competition. No one is going to want to talk about free trade until trade prospects significantly improve. It could be several years before we will see any movement on new agreements.
Weyerhaeuser has been trying to sell a nice fleet of cargo ships for some months and there is no interest as shipping is contracting across the globe.

Seattle was the poster child for globalism. Instead of producing real value, you guys stapled together parts built with cheap labor or unloaded things into your docks and then jacked up the price. Sorry to say, it doesn't work any more.

If only “economic realities” were mirrored in the “physical realities of the planet, what a joyful world we’d all inhabit! We could move closer to that paradigm by, say, mandating that the WTO Dispute Settlement crew included an ecologist, an anthropologist & an ethicist, instead of guys with banking, economics, international law, & trade policy backgrounds only.

For another thing, WTO itself admits that smaller “less-developed” countries are WAY more likely to be hammered in bi-lateral agreements (as opposed to multi-lateral treaties & policies), to the ongoing detriment of the majorities of their working populations (but not to their economic elites, most likely). Of course, with the “biggest hammer” being in the hands of the USA, we “stand to gain” from that. Feel better? (Me neither…)

While the “Asian Tigers” (& Panda) live off our ag bounty, recycle our scrap into products, and lend us money to buy their stuff (& make wars if we like), we continue to support & maintain ourselves with “make-work” boondoggles, like the Interstate Highway System, where EVERY MAN IS AN ENGINEER- WITH HIS OWN 1-CAR CHOO-CHOO TRAIN, or AIRPORT CONSTRUCTION (when high-speed rail should be there to eliminate the short-hop & “commuter” flights in our region).

Can’t buy Colombian products locally? A lot of coffee purveyors regionally might disagree… and, locally, the roses you’ll buy for Valentines Day will probably come from there… from a company that left 7 acres under glass on Vashon Island decades ago (where it sits decaying to this day) to take advantage of low wages, cheap fuel, lax environmental regulations, subsidized delivery systems (thanks, U.S. public Port Districts!) etc. It makes SOMEONE good money; but it doesn’t make much sense.

Newt Gingrich’s explanation “Every day, every good American says ‘what’s the angle?.. how do I get around it?’” as his working hypothesis of the interaction of entrepreneurs & regulations in general is a pretty sound analysis. If you’re a “free-trade” neo-liberal or an old-school “Bull-Market Democrat” (a la the Martin Durkan conspiracy) and “jobs” is the ONLY Thing then, yes… the heck with environmental niceties at home & sockin’ it to the “Indians” out there in the emerging nation-states. But SOMEone is gonna pay for LUNCH—us, our kids, grandkids, someone… ^..^