Does Obama Want New Jobs?
Not so’s you’d notice. Long-time readers know that I occasionally rant about the Obama Administration’s insincere approach to free trade agreements and apparent disinterest in using them to create or protect American jobs. I’m not the only one. Says Thomas J. Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, referring to the overwhelming positive economic impact of past FTAs: “I defy anyone to name another budget-neutral government initiative that has generated anything like this number of jobs.”
Do we want jobs or not?
It’s been tough with my travel lately, but I finally got around to looking at the Chamber’s new study: Opening Markets, Creating Jobs: Estimated U.S. Employment Effects of Trade with FTA Partners. Some of the stats in the study are eye-popping. The Chamber study examined the agreements that the United States had in place with fourteen countries in 2008 and found that 17.7 million American jobs depended on trade with those countries. More to the point, 5.4 million jobs were created by our much-maligned free trade agreements. Can you think of any other way that more than 5 million Americans can be put to work with no adverse impact on the federal budget? I can’t. But this isn’t good enough for the Obama Administration which, while claiming to like FTAs, still doesn’t ask the Democrats in Congress to move forward the stillborn agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia. The South Korea agreement is estimated to mean some 345,000 jobs. Our politicians should ask their voters if they would like a job or two. And export-related jobs tend to be higher paying than other jobs in the U.S. economy. Who besides an out-of-touch politician in Washington would say no to such a deal?
The fourteen FTAs that our politicians despise added 2.1% to our GDP in 2008, putting $3.4 billion into the hands of their constituents. Our exports to these markets grew nearly three times faster than our sales to the rest of the world. One wonders how this is bad?
The rest of the world has seen the light and is merrily negotiating and implementing new FTAs while our negotiators are left sitting on their hands – and while our exporters find themselves increasingly disadvantaged in foreign markets. Yes, it would be nicer if our trading partners kowtowed to the wishes of our Congress on labor standards and environmental policies, but when did we get the right to legislate for other sovereign nations? Would we allow another country to hold up an agreement if they wished to change, say, U.S. military policies in Afghanistan? Somehow I doubt it, but that is what we are trying to impose on others. By using FTAs as the tool, we are merely condemning U.S. export sales and killing jobs that our country desperately needs. Wake up, Washington.
