CTPS in the NEWS

April 27, 2008
 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, WI -- "There were a lot of great ideas on the reform side." But in the end, reformers could not compete with farmers who wanted to keep the current system in place. The farm subsidy lobby is absolutely up there with pharmaceuticals and the oil industry as far as how powerful they are."

April 25, 2008
 Heritage.org -- Contrary to the rhetoric of  Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — and CNN’s Lou Dobbs, for that matter — free trade continues to greatly benefit American workers.

That was some of the good news from Heritage’s Resource Bank meeting this morning as Ambassador Terry Miller, who directs our Center for International Trade and Economics, moderated a panel on trade. Other experts included CATO Institute’s Daniel Griswold, the IMANI Center for Policy & Education’s Franklin Cudjoe and the Dominican Republic Center for Export and Investment’s Eddy Martinez.

Griswold, who has faced down Dobbs on air, passed around a fact sheet that’s well worth sharing. Check out these facts:

April 24, 2008
 Marketplace, CA -- Farming is not what it used to be. It is no longer just a family farm environment. It's big companies. It's much larger farms, run on a much more commercial cut-throat basis.

For one thing, commodities have become a much more attractive investment as demand has soared. And the subsidies Congress is handing out are making those commodities even more lucrative. Plus, they're making farmers richer. And analysts say that means they'll buy more equipment, fertilizer, and seeds. So Wall Street is eyeing investments in agribusiness, machinery, and biofuels.

April 21, 2008
 Investor's Business Daily -- A shrinking, battered middle class forced to take low-paying McJobs is a myth. Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers show that "the country's lost a net 3.3 million manufacturing jobs in the past decade — but it's added a net 11.6 million jobs in service and other sectors where average wages are higher than in manufacturing."

 Scoop.co.nz, New Zealand -- rice is one of the most heavily supported commodities in the US - with three different subsidies together averaging over $1 billion a year since 1998 and projected to average over $700 million a year through 2015. The result? "Tens of millions of rice farmers in poor countries find it hard to lift their families out of poverty because of the lower, more volatile prices caused by the interventionist policies of other countries."

In addition to three different subsidies for rice farmers in the US, there are also direct tariff barriers of three to 24 percent - the exact same type of protections, though much higher, that the US and the IMF required Haiti to eliminate in the 1980s and 1990s.

April 18, 2008
 Trading Markets-- Eliminating the ethanol subsidy program wouldn't solve the world food crisis in a stroke, but it would make a significant contribution.

April 16, 2008
 Arkansas Democrat Gazette, AR-- The group’s farm-subsidy database has played a pivotal role in the policy debates surrounding U. S. agricultural policy.

“I’m lobbying for [Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group ] to get a public service medal,” James said. “I can’t think of anything that’s been done in the public policy arena in the last 20 years that has had as much of an impact as this seemingly simple Freedom of Information request.”

 Globe and Mail, Canada-- “A worsening deficit is typically associated with faster economic growth, and an improving deficit with slower growth.” There is no evidence that an expanding deficit was ever associated with slower economic growth.

Griswold identified eight years since 1982 when the U.S. current account deficit fell (“improved”) as a percentage of GDP; 10 years in which the deficit increased (“worsened”) by less than 0.5 per cent of GDP; and eight years in which the deficit increased (“much worsened”) by more than 0.5 per cent of GDP. He found that:

• In the years in which the current account deficit shrank as a share of GDP, real GDP growth averaged 1.9 per cent.
• In the years in which the deficit grew modestly, GDP growth averaged 3.0 per cent.
• In the years in which the deficit expanded substantially, GDP growth averaged 4.1 per cent. “In other words, economic growth has been more than twice as fast, on average, in years in which the current account deficit grew sharply compared to those years in which it actually declined.” The fastest growth in GDP, in a single year, occurred in 1984 when the current account deficit increased by 1.3 per cent of GDP – and the economy grew by a real 7.2 per cent. The Merrill Lynch forecast for Canada, by comparison, is for an increase in the current account deficit equal to 1.8 per cent of GDP for two consecutive years.

April 13, 2008
 The State, SC -- U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham's voting record has been quite a bit less friendly to trade than the typical Republican in Congress.

April 11, 2008
 San Francisco Chronicle -- More trade is the best deal for America. "The middle class is better off than it was 10 or 20 years ago." Current jitters can be attributed to "a rough patch" in the economy.

April 10, 2008
 Washington Times, DC -- "President Bush announced Monday that he will send the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement to Congress for a vote. It was a bold decision and the right one. Whatever the outcome, the vote will be a defining moment for U.S. trade policy."

April 6, 2008
 Foster's Daily Democrat, NH -- U.S. anti-dumping laws, which have been on the books since the 1920s, have a "whiff of hypocrisy." China, India, Brazil, South Africa and Argentina modeled anti-dumping laws after the U.S. statutes. As a result, U.S. companies sometimes get burned overseas by the same laws that protect them at home. There is no surprise that the Japanese government passed a claw back law and said it shows how vulnerable U.S. companies can be if they have plants overseas.

April 4, 2008
 Dallas Morning News, TX -- Illegal immigrants are crossing the border because U.S. business has an ongoing demand for cheap labor. Building a border fence won't ease that demand. But a guest-worker program that allows immigrants to enter legally would do a far better job than a fence in reducing illegal crossings.

It would ensure that employers have access to the labor they need. And tougher workplace enforcement, coupled with measures giving existing illegal immigrants a pathway to regularization, would provide stronger incentives for all to comply with the law.

 National Center for Policy Analysis, TX -- The next time you hear a U.S. politician or pundit lament that "average real hourly wages" have declined, don't be misled.  The average real wage is a fundamentally flawed measure of the well-being and progress of American workers for three reasons. For example:

• The real wage does not include benefits.
• It relies on cost-of-living estimates that have tended to systematically overstate inflation in recent decades and thus understate gains in real earnings.
• Real wage numbers are often compared to previous peak years, a practice that tends to minimize longer-term upward trends.

April 2, 2008
 Dallas Morning News, TX -- We should consider the economic influence of illegals when we tally up the costs of illegal immigration.

 Wall Street Journal Blogs, NY -- “If a tougher stance means using the WTO Dispute Settlement Body [DSB] more systematically to achieve greater Chinese compliance with the vast obligations to which China agreed upon joining the WTO in 2001, the answer is ‘yes.’ If it means supporting or encouraging provocative legislation or taking unilateral administrative actions to compel or punish China in a manner that would violate our own WTO obligations or would benefit a few litigious industries at the expense of broader economic interests, the answer is ‘no.’”

March 28, 2008
 Marketplace, CA -- Just from a simple economic justice point of view, it's very troubling that US farmers are raking up to $2.5 million in subsidies.

March 25, 2008
 Crosswalk.com, VA and CNSNews.com, VA -- As there is "no evidence" of wage suppression the cap on H-1B visas is "silly."

"U.S. high-tech workers continue to earn very competitive, attractive salaries. It's just that U.S. companies literally can't find the workers they need. The current cap is ridiculously low and is impeding America's ability to compete in the global high-tech economy. Raising the H-1B cap would allow American companies to hire the workers they need to meet the demands of a global marketplace. If U.S. workers can't hire the workers they need here at home, they will have greater incentives to move their production facilities abroad. We are already seeing that -- Microsoft has located a facility in Vancouver, Canada because it's easier to hire the people they need. Other companies will look more seriously at locating facilities in India and Ireland and elsewhere."

There is "no evidence that issuing more H-1B visas has any effect on U.S. employment. In fact, the evidence is that H-1B workers create employment for Americans. For every one hired, U.S. companies tend to hire other Americans to work with the H-1B workers. So, hiring H-1B workers helps U.S. companies keep production in the United States. In the late 1990s, U.S. companies were making full use of H-1B visas and yet employment was growing. When there isn't demand, companies don't seek H-1B visas."

March 21, 2008
 Council on Foreign Relations, NY -- Job losses are "part of a structural shift of the U.S. economy" away from a focus on heavy manufacturing and toward a focus on light manufacturing and high-end services. “It’s a cruel illusion to say if we just go in and tinker with NAFTA there will be some kind of industrial renaissance."

March 17, 2008
 Connecticut Business News Journal, CT -- Debunking anti-free traders' claim that "deindustrialization" means the jobs available to ex-factory workers are low-paid positions in malls and fast-food joints: "Of the five employment categories that saw the most U.S. job growth between 1997 and 2007, four paid slightly higher average wages than manufacturing. Positions in construction, professional/business services, finance, and education/health services all pay wages that surpass manufacturing's average of $17.12 an hour."

 Chicago Tribune and Truth about Trade & Technology, IA -- Since 2004, exports have recovered and losses of manufacturing jobs have slowed to about 100,000 a year.

March 7, 2008
 Crosswalk.com, VA -- The cost for illegal immigration is a heavy and unnecessary burden on local communities. "It is a lot of money for these local communities. County officials should be out there catching local criminals. Instead they are chasing down people who are coming to be construction workers and dishwashers and maids."

Griswold likens our current immigration laws to the historical outlawing of alcoholic beverages in the United States.  "Like prohibition in the 1930s, current border laws have spawned an underworld of crime, smuggling and document crime. That's where the violence comes in. If we had reform, we would see a drastic reduction in smuggling."

March 4, 2008  Seattle Times, WA -- "We're producing 40-50 percent more stuff than we did before NAFTA. We're just doing it with fewer workers. ... NAFTA has probably accelerated that trend to a higher level of manufacturing, but that's been one of the successes of the agreement, not one of the problems." March 3, 2008  Investor's Business Daily -- Threat to opt out of NAFTA is "cheap talk," because actually pulling out of the deal "would be an economic and diplomatic disaster."

More important than NAFTA in the loss of some manufacturing jobs, some economists say, is computerization that makes factories far more efficient, such as at this steel mill in Cleveland.

March 2, 2008
 Worcester Telegram, MA -- “The embargo reinforced [Fidel Castro’s] grip on power for giving him an excuse for his economic failures.”

February 29, 2008  Marketplace, CA -- While on Capitol Hill lawmakers are pushing through subsidies in a huge multi-year farm bill right in the middle of an election season farmers aren't suffering near as much. Prices for commodities are high and ethanol mandates are paying off. Farm Bill will get through Congress. The only question is how expensive it will be and whether there will be tax increases or cuts elsewhere to pay for it.

February 28, 2008
 Exchange Morning Post, Canada -- Increased trade has not lowered American living standards. The economy has 16.5 million more people working today than 10 years ago. Although there has been about a 3.3 million job loss in manufacturing over the past decade, there has been a net gain of 11.6 million jobs in sectors with higher average wages than in manufacturing. And many of those manufacturing jobs have disappeared not because of trade, but because of technological advances and productivity improvements.

 Toronto Star, Canada -- "Both Democratic candidates are peddling a cruel illusion on trade. They raise the false hope that tinkering with a 14-year-old trade agreement will somehow bring an industrial renaissance to Youngstown, Ohio, and other industrial cities.''

February 26, 2008
 National Review Online, NY -- It’s an odd time to demonize NAFTA. U.S. manufacturing went through a deep recession from 2000 to 2003, shedding 3 million jobs. It has recovered since, and 2006 was “a record year for output, revenues, profits, profit rates and return on investment.”

 National Review Online, NY -- Unemployment has remained low since the advances in trade liberalization made during the 1990s. Many people blame trade for stagnant wages, but the real culprit is the rising cost of health care—and trade is not responsible for that. Trade has, indeed, helped: It has enabled the U.S. economy to shift more resources into high-paying jobs, and more people are prosperous today as a result.

February 25, 2008
 Waterbury Republican American, CT -- "Youngstown, Ohio's problems have nothing to do with NAFTA. The real story in manufacturing isn't trade, it is technology.

"We're producing 40-50 percent more stuff than we did before NAFTA. We're just doing it with fewer workers. ... NAFTA has probably accelerated that trend to a higher level of manufacturing, but that's been one of the successes of the agreement, not one of the problems."

February 22, 2008
 Reuters -- "Barack Obama and Mrs. Clinton are selling an illusion. The idea that the leaders of Canada and Mexico would sit down with the U.S. and rewrite this agreement is really a fantasy."

February 16, 2008
 Globe and Mail, Canada -- "We have the possibility of a major-party candidate winning on a trade-skeptic platform."

There are a couple of reasons why the anti-free-trade message is resonating. Important Democratic constituencies, such as labour unions, have hardened their opposition to trade deals - so in a close primary, where every delegate counts, they are pandered to. But it is broader than that. The U.S. economy is shakier than it has been in any presidential election year since '92. Leaving aside his geographical malapropism - Mexico isn't exactly "overseas" - Mr. Obama's words tap into a deep concern among American workers that trade deals export the good jobs, leaving them to scrape the grease off the grill at Wendy's.

The problem is that it doesn't quite fit the facts. Mr. Griswold's study of the data found that trade liberalization has had little impact on the number of U.S. jobs (the unemployment rate is slightly lower now than when NAFTA came into effect), but actually helped improve the quality of those jobs. Stories of middle-class stagnation might work in stump speeches, but the numbers say otherwise: In the past decade, the average hourly pay for American workers - if you include benefits - is up 22 per cent in real terms (i.e., adjusted for inflation), he says. The median household income was also up, though not as sharply.

What about inequality? "We can't keep driving a wider and wider gap between the few who are rich and the rest who struggle to keep pace," Mr. Obama says, and who could argue with that? The sentiment is powerful, but again, it is more myth than fact. About one-third of American households report a middle-class income of $35,000 (U.S.) to $75,000 - virtually unchanged in 10 years, Mr. Griswold says (all figures in inflation-adjusted 2006 dollars). But there are fewer people earning less than $35,000 and more making $75,000. The American middle class is not shrinking, he says, "but moving up."

Those same trends extend to America's primary trading partners, especially developing nations. The number of people living on less than $1 a day declined by more than 130 million between 1994 and 2004. "We're seeing it around the world - declining poverty, declining rates of child labour, rising literacy rates," Mr. Griswold says. Free trade is the engine of that change; the world needs more of it, not less. This is one time when you've got to hope the politicians really are just blowing hot air.

February 5, 2008
 PocketFives -- What are the implications of the global free trade ramifications of the Remote Gambling Association’s recent complaint lodged with the European Commission claiming discrimination by the U.S.?

February 4, 2008  CNNMoney.com -- Since manufacturing represents a much smaller part of overall economic activity, more purchases of imported goods eventually helps supports these service-sector jobs. "People who are concerned that China or other countries benefit more than the U.S. from the rebates reflect a myopic view of how the world works." Actually, the stimulus package, in its present form, would not even spark economic activity in a meaningful way. Even if Americans only bought more domestically made products with their rebate checks, it still wouldn't prompt U.S. companies to increase their output and investment. That's because "suppliers know that the uptick in demand is just a short-term response by consumers."

 CNSNews.com, VA -- "The federal government should abandon its protection of U.S. farmers from competition and its pursuit of a misguided biofuels policy whose environmental benefits are spurious at best. Politicians especially keen to 'stimulate' the economy by putting more money in the hands of consumers should start by reducing the taxes on imported dairy products, sugar, rice, and ethanol."

January 29, 2008  Christian Science Monitor, MA and AXcess News, KY -- "Remittances are the best kind of foreign aid we've got. It goes family to family with minimal cut by middlemen."

January 24, 2008
 U.S. News & World Report -- "The ethanol industry is hogging more and more of the corn supply, and that is squeezing ranchers and dairy farmers."

January 17, 2008
International Trade Reporter -- There is a less than 50-50 chance that the Colombia ITA would be considered in 2008. "Unfortunately, the agreement is caught up in constituent politics."

The fate of the Panama pact hinges on developmentswith Gonzalez-Pinzon. Given the long historical ties between the United States and Panama,the Panamaagreement should be the easiest one of the threepending ITAs to approveif the issueof Gonzalez-Pinzon is resolved, he commented. "Until that is resolved, it's going to be in limbo."

International Trade Reporter -- The outlook for TPA in 2008 "is not bright. This Congress is in no mood to expand the authority of President Bush. The Democratic leadership is under tremendous pressure from its organized labor constituents not to move ahead on trade liberalization." Absent the WTO pact, or any other agreement to be negotiated, "it's hard to imagine TPA being renewed."

January 15, 2008
The Market Oracle, UK -- The current account deficit was mainly due to foreign savings flooding into the US because of its stable and relatively free domestic market.

January 4, 2008
Reason Online, CA -- "Mitt Romney joins a growing list of politicians who have failed to ride the immigration issue to success when it counts."

January 3, 2008
International Trade Reporter -- "In an analysis of the relationship between trade and American jobs, it is important to look not only at workers' wages, but at a measure that incorporates the cost of workers' benefits as well, and to use accurate cost-of-living data that are not overstated in terms of inflation. It is also necessary to consider comparable points in the economy's business cycle."

2007

2006