Free Trade is a Failure

Universities in the United States produce some of the best economists, engineers, historians, scientists, and political theorists in the world. The quality of education up the high school level has fallen off precipitously in the past few decades, but for those who strive for higher education there is virtually no better place to do it than here in the U.S.

Unfortunately, while the brain trust of academia has largely been unable to breech the ivory tower that is Washington politics. Our politicians have to deal with issues on a daily basis that affect every sector of the economy, and ever sector of everyday life in America. Yet the vast majority of them are attorneys. Their professional training is in litigation; not civil engineering, economics, or hard sciences.

After sprinkling in a few medical doctors and former military service members, and a growing number of former corporate executives, you have accounted for nearly every elected official in our nation’s capital.

It is no wonder why our politicians seem to constantly come up on the short end of international diplomatic and economic negotiations. When a ministerial conference is conveyed in Beijing, or Sydney, or Doha, nations from around the world send their top academic minds – after deputizing them into the political system in some way. The United States, meanwhile, sends Ivy League law graduates and a cohort with a lifetime of experience in fundraising and campaigning.

The disparity between U.S. decision makers and their foreign counterparts can be made no clearer than in the area of international commerce.

The United States listlessly engages in “free trade at all costs” as a means of spread prosperity around the globe. Yet it does so while never acknowledging the fact that global growth is accomplished at the expense of the American economy. So-called “free trade” has not been a vehicle for global growth in the past 30 years, it has been the vehicle through which America’s investment capital, productive facilities, and disposable income was relocated overseas.

Self-destructive Capitalism

Adjusting for inflation the United States has lost nearly $11 trillion to international commerce since 1976 – the U.S. hasn’t had an annual trade surplus since 1975. This means that our economy – currently valued at $14 trillion – has been cut virtually in half because of our constant pursuit of unregulated commerce.

Organizations like the WTO and NAFTA are merely the most infamous of the free trade lobby. Other groups, organizations, and agreements are just as detrimental. One of the largest free trade lobbies in the United States is APEC.

This conglomeration of Pacific Rim nations is growing in prominence in the U.S., and leaders push its ideals from both parties in both houses of Congress and the White House itself.

Perhaps our leadership is intentionally getting the sour end of the deal for the American people, perhaps they quite simply don’t know any better. Regardless of the cause, the effect is the same; America is losing in international trade.

No other country loses so many jobs, so much productive, and so much investment capital to international trade. No country can even come close to losing so much money.

Most Americans agree that “free trade” is a poor policy choice for this country, particularly in this time of economic crisis. Our leadership either chooses to ignore these cries, or it simply cannot hear them through the ambient noise of Washington’s political cloister.