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Trade, Jobs and Sales Jobs: Failing To Do the Math on Export Promises
Corporate media have spent the last few years portraying the federal budget deficit, not jobs, as the public’s consuming worry, despite poll after poll revealing people unsurprisingly more interested in getting or holding onto a paycheck (FAIR Media Advisory, 8/1/11)
US President Barack Obama has sent long-stalled free trade deals with Colombia, Panama and South Korea to Congress and pressed lawmakers there to approve them "without delay." As is customary when it comes to international trade agreements, the mainstream media seems incapable of giving voice to those critical of such deals. Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch calls the notion that a bilateral deal with Korea would support some 70,000 jobs “one of the most popular outright errors in the history of trade debates.” Only now that official Washington turns its sights to the issue have media “discovered” the unemployment crisis—George Stephanopoulos now refers matter-of-factly to “the country’s top issue, jobs” (Good Morning America, 8/16/11)—but the same skewed priorities are on display.
Bad enough the glib nature of their attentions, reflected in New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof’s ingenuous “feeling” (8/27/11), based on visiting his hometown on vacation, that perhaps media may have “dropped the ball” on the issue. Surveys like those cited by Kristof, revealing a public deeply worried about their livelihoods, have long been available; yet it took hearing about it “in the living rooms or on the front porches here in Yamhill, Oregon, where I grew up” for Kristof to give them weight.
Media’s shallowness of approach extends to their handling of factual issues, like those around the push to pass languishing “free trade” agreements (FTAs) with South Korea, Colombia and Panama, where familiar promises of new jobs and booming export growth meet little resistance, despite a remarkable lack of credibility.
Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch (8/5/11) calls the notion that a bilateral deal with Korea would support some 70,000 jobs “one of the most popular outright errors in the history of trade debates.” The group (8/6/10) found the factoid, cited by U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk, among others, to be based on a glaringly selective reading of data from the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC), focusing on export growth but ignoring the effect of imports.
If we were to account for the effects of imports, use this same method of jobs calculation, and consider the effect of the Korea FTA on the U.S. global trade balance (available on Table 2.3 in the USITC report), we would find that the Korea FTA would cost us a net 2,100–2,700 jobs, since the trade deficit will increase by $308–$416 million.
It sure looks like an intentional misrepresentation, but outlets like Washington Post.com (8/3/11) simply reported the 70,000 jobs figure as an assertion of “the White House, which backs the trade deals,” without evident curiosity as to its truth, while the San Francisco Chronicle (8/18/11) used the bogus statistic as a foundation for an editorial endorsement of the deals.
Kirk “made a compelling case that delayed ratification of those bilateral trade agreements is costing American job opportunities,” the Chronicle explained. “Increasing U.S. exports by lowering trade barriers is a way to stimulate job creation without government subsidies. A nation with 9 percent unemployment cannot afford to pass up such opportunities.”
At the Associated Press (8/4/11), the distorted claim of 70,000 jobs, along with the “$13 billion” increase in exports on which such claims are statistically premised, were rendered neutral and eminently plausible: “The stakes are considerable: The trade agreement with South Korea would be the biggest since the 1994 passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement, with estimates of 70,000 new jobs created by increased U.S. exports.... Combined, the three deals could increase U.S. exports by $13 billion a year.”
The idea that the pacts would increase exports by between $11 and $13 billion was reported without examination in news reports (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 7/17/11; San Antonio Express-News, 7/17/11) and touted in editorials (Boston Herald, 7/3/11).
But again, while no estimates are available for the Panama deal, Global Trade Watch (8/5/11) found that for Colombia as with Korea, projections of increased exports are based on ignoring the effect of imports and the overall trade balance. In reality, “the USITC studies reveal that net exports would decline by $482 million under the Korea and Colombia trade deals.”
Global Trade Watch has called on journalists to call out these important errors in FTA proponents’ arguments, which, the group points out, are far from complex, involving numbers that “are publicly available, very straightforward and involve reading no more than two pages in two reports.”
Of course, doing independent investigation into the promises made to Americans about jobs and trade deals would require elite media to care about regular people’s struggles in a consistent way—not just when they’re on vacation.
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17 Comments so far
Show AllOver the years Paul Craig Roberts has hammered the point that outsourcing jobs is one of the key factors behind US economic decline.
FTAs are for making it easier to outsource jobs and to up the corporate profits. And just look at the NAFTA to see the havoc wrought in the "recipient" countries like Mexico.
When most Americans hear the term "increased exports" they envision the old paradigm of boatloads of manufactured goods being shipped abroad.
The 21st century "increased exports" paradigm includes few manufactured goods being shipped abroad and more agricultural products and raw materials like coal and timber being shipped abroad. Unfortunately these exports produce fewer and lower paying jobs than manufacturing does.
Trade agreements do, however create a lot of manufacturing jobs...in other nations.
Expecting corporate news outlets to actually do what is taught in journalism schools when doing such goes against the agenda decreeded by the suits in the executive suite? NOT A CHANCE!
Not to mention the fact that the number of jobs is usually inflated and the environmental degradation resulting from the projects that the FTAs are designed to support is never, and I mean never, reported.
NAFTA is considered one of the gravest threats to the planet, both environmentally and socially. There are better ways of creating jobs for us 99%ers.
I stopped voting for Democrats after watching Bill Clinton zealously push NAFTA through Congress without ever mentioning the need to consider any environmental or workplace safety concerns.
He also said we could repeal if it didn't work out. The funny thing is they never admit something doesn't work. And nothing but prohibition has ever been repealed.
"A nation with 9 percent unemployment cannot afford to pass up such opportunities."
It's actually 17+% and more likely 22% unemployed/underemployed when calculated the way it use to be to gather real statistical measures. Should we believe Mr. Kirk when he doesn't even know what the real un/underemployment figures are?
Can't afford to pass it up? By whose calculations?
I applaud bluegrass, rvrwalker, and raydelcamino for noting the subtext that ALWAYS gets swept under the rug - even in this article.
FTAs are an interesting idea, given that a few basic premises are met:
a) The other country is not going to strip-mine and pollute their countries to hell.
b) The other country is not going to pay their people slave wages, use child labor, and provide horrible/dangerous working conditions.
Unfortunately, ALL of these agreements miss both of these conditions.
Big business in the USA doesn't care about that crap, however, and are far more interested in making $ for their shareholders than protecting people, trees, or water sources.
Then people in the USA (and I am regretfully part of this legacy) don't care about the stuff they buy except for how much it costs. We're all complicit in this cycle, but those who should be taking the global view- our government- are not representing the people. They're representing corporations: faceless, nameless, amoral entities designed to make $.
So I guess this is a fine start... let's challenge the math behind these agreements. But in the end that's fighting on their terms; even if the math said it would add jobs, I don't want more freaking jobs if it creates a hellish landscape and existence for the millions in other countries with whom we trade.
Of course, if any candidate said that, they'd instantly be labeled as "Anti-job" by the US Chamber of Commerce hack squads. End up on a no-fly list, probably...
So far so good, but what about this little "Constitutional" issue? "This week, we’ll see Congress vote on three so-called “trade agreements.” Did you ever wonder why they call them “trade agreements”? So that they don’t have to call them what they actually are – treaties.
Under our Constitution, a “Bill” requires the approval of a majority of both Houses of Congress and the President’s assent, or an override of the President’s veto. But under Article II, Section 2, Clause 2, a “Treaty” requires “the Advice and Consent of the Senate . . . provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.”
The continuation of the Great Global "race to the bottom" for the holy immoral rentier class. sorry for the pun.
Peace:)
Pt. # 2: The Powers That Be know that these “trade agreements” couldn’t get the support of two-thirds of the Senate. In fact, they probably couldn’t get past a filibuster. So they just renamed them. They’re not treaties, they’re just “trade agreements.”
But they sure look like treaties, don’t they? They are agreements between our government and a foreign government. That’s a treaty.
If it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck . . . and it quacks . . . it’s a duck.
But they don’t care. They can’t get the two-thirds that they need in the Senate, so they’ll just pretend that they don’t need it.
And the “fast track” treatment of these “trade agreements,” which thankfully expired in 2007? Also unconstitutional. That’s one Congress (the 93rd Congress, for those who are keeping score) purporting to dictate procedures and rules to subsequent Congresses. You can’t do that, according to Article I, Section 5 of the aforesaid U.S. Constitution.
Pt. 3; So here we are in this mad rush to serve Mammon, not only shoveling jobs overseas, but trampling on our Constitution while we do it.
I hope that when the Panama, Colombia and South Korea “trade agreements” come before the House and the Senate this week, at least one Member of Congress (Dennis Kucinich, maybe? Ron Paul, maybe?) has the guts to stand up and say, “point of order, for the Chair. These bills are not properly before the House, and they require they concurrence of two-thirds of the Senate. I REQUEST A RULING BY THE CHAIR.”
Let’s see what the Parliamentarians say. If they end the charade, then it’s over. And if they go along with the charade, then let’s have a vote.
I just hope that if such a vote does take place, that every Member of Congress remembers that he or she swore to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Not the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Alan Grayson
We will make our case as hard and as well as we can. And although the fight will
be difficult, I deeply believe we will win. And I'd like to tell you why. First of all,
because Nafta means jobs. American jobs, and good paying jobs. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't support this agreement. We will make our case as hard and as well as we can. And though the fight will be difficult, I deeply believe we will win.First of all, because Nafta means jobs, American jobs, and good paying jobs. If I didn't believe that I wouldn't support this agreement. "Slick Willie Clinton" when
he signed of on Nafta.
The funny thing is NAFTA didn't prove beneficial to any of the average citizens of the nations involved. It was a dismal failure in Mexico. The only ones it benefited were the multinational coporations and the globalists.
"One of the most infamous predictions of NAFTA benefits was made by Gary Hufbauer of the Institute for International Economics, a well-financed "free trade" think tank. In a 1992 study, Hufbauer claimed, "NAFTA will generate a $7 to $9 billion surplus that would ensure the net creation of 170,000 jobs in the U.S. economy the first year." This did not happen, of course, and as the Wall Street Journal reported in its October 26, 1995 edition, "Gary Hufbauer...whose predictions of NAFTA job gains were embraced by the Clinton and Bush White Houses now figures the surging trade deficit with Mexico has cost the U.S. 225,000 jobs.""
http://www.americaneconomicalert.org/view_art.asp?Prod_ID=715
"Thus while Mexico earned a $24.6 billion surplus with the United States in 2001, it racked up deficits with the European Union (-$9.9 billion), Japan (-$6.7 billion), China (-$3.3 billion), South Korea (-$3.0 billion), Taiwan (-$2.4 billion), Brazil (-$1.3 billion), and virtually every other country with which it did any substantial trade. Mexico has become just another conduit for the transfer of U.S. wealth to the rest of the world.
The United States negotiated NAFTA to help solve American economic problems that were growing to dangerous levels in the mid-1990s. But rather than counter adverse trends, NAFTA has added to them by shifting industrial capacity and job opportunities south of the border, while expanding the trade deficit. The only possible verdict is that NAFTA has been another failure in U.S. trade policy, and is nothing to celebrate."
same source
Don't be silly, the math is fine for the people that Obama works for.
The corporate media fail to do the math on everything but their own paychecks.