SO COMMON is anti-trade rhetoric in the election campaign that you might think America is about to erect a wall on every side. Donald Trump threatens to slap a 45% tariff on Chinese imports and to bully firms into returning their factories to America. Bernie Sanders proudly recalls his unwavering opposition to free-trade agreements, past and current. And Hillary Clinton, having supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the latest trade accord, as secretary of state, now opposes it.
Presidential candidates have long done this routinely. Barack Obama, who today peddles trade deals, slammed them in 2008. What makes today’s protectionism more potent is that draws on broader changes in thinking among economists about the impact of trade. Many are now a good deal more critical.
Since the 1980s, America’s economy has gradually opened up to cheap imports. This accelerated in 1993, when President Bill Clinton signed the North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada. The deal, America’s first major trade accord which included a poor country, eliminated most tariffs on trade between the three countries over a decade....Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/1MCi3HX
EmoticonEmoticon