Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
On this episode of the AEI Events Podcast, listen as scholars from AEI and the Brookings Institution launch “Reconceptualizing Globalization,” a joint project to address globalization, anti-globalization, and engagement.
AEI’s Neena Shenai explained that the 2016 election cycle revealed divides among US citizens regarding international trade. She recognized that while globalization has benefited the US, the current constituency for globalization has failed to communicate to the American public how trade liberalization has underpinned US prosperity.
RiceHadleyGates’ Stephen J. Hadley emphasized that anti-globalization sentiment indicates a need to revalorize the international system, noting that opponents of trade liberalization will not concede until the US fixes pressing domestic issues. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Jared Bernstein agreed that, historically, elected officials are reluctant to admit the negative consequences of international trade.
Tufts University’s Daniel W. Drezner argued that a growing majority of Americans support globalization and that the Trump administration blames international trade for unrelated domestic problems. Columbia University’s Merit Janow stated that while the US can celebrate gains from globalization, it must equally manage the concentrated economic losses. The Brookings Institution’s Joshua Meltzer concluded that domestic policy has failed to address economic dislocation and that a new and diverse constituency must support a new wave of trade liberalization in the US.
This event took place on July 11, 2018.
Subscribe to AEI Events Podcast in Apple Podcasts (and leave a 5-star review, please!), or by RSS feed. For all our podcasts in one place, subscribe to the Ricochet Audio Network Superfeed in Apple Podcasts or by RSS feed.
Up until about ten years ago, I was an unabashed proponent of Free Trade. After all, how could one not be after graduating from the Wharton School in the mid-1960’s with an MBA in International Business? But then after a wonderful and rewarding career, I retired and I started to look at the devastation around me. I’ve spent more than a little time studying it now, and am appalled.
My favorite suggestion now to unwavering free traders is to take the drive from Charlotte NC to Atlanta GA using the smaller state and federal highways, and not use any interstate. Best to have a partner with you so that he or she can make a dot on a map and a list of all the closed manufacturing plants you see. Even take a photo of each case. I did this trip. There are about 300 such shells of former manufacturing facilities, and some of them are large. Now of course, not all may have been shuttered because the jobs therein were sent to Mexico or China. But, there is enough evidence to suggest that the percentage of such cases is hardly negligible, and those persons, living in those small towns who became unemployed, and even unemployable, is at the core of this person’s belief that Free Trade has helped the top five percent a great deal, and the center circa sixty percent of the population some, and unequivocally hurt the bottom thirty-five percent. Doubt me? Look at the “Not in labor force” figures of Bureau of Labor Statistics Table A-1, and compare those figures to those “Persons who currently want a job”. I estimate that somewhere around 40 million of that first figure are the unemployable. You free traders have largely ignored these people.
Until we start to understand that the balance of the developed world’s countries uses aspects of Free Trade that help them….in other words, using Managed Free Trade….only then will we wake up and stop our rot. My conclusion is that Trump is more correct about this than he is wrong. So, all of you “Free Trade at any cost” academics, and other doubters out there, I challenge you to take your circa two hundred mile (non-interstate!) drive through your part of the country, and count the abandoned former places of work for many of our people. Then sit on a panel and say how unabashedly in favor you are of unlimited Free Trade.
I would like to offer a second comment.
It appears Messrs. Hadley and Bernstein understand the social issues of what we’re dealing with here.
But, Drs. Daniel Drezner and Merit Janow are like most academics: in denial of the damage done to our country by virtually unrestricted Free Trade/Globalization practiced by us but not equally practiced by our major trading partners. We drank the whole pitcher of Kool-Aid and our trading partners only drank a small glass. I live in Europe, and I can assure anyone reading this that there is vast protectionism here not only in the form of tariffs, but also in non-tariff barriers and the remarkable loyalty of locals for what is made in their own countries even if it costs more. That is good thing, and not a bad thing. And, VAT is used here in some very clever ways.
Dr. Drezner likes to interpret what the American people really are thinking by selectively quoting polls. The polls are more often wrong than right at election time. Ask Hillary.
And Dr. Janow, please think about the practicalities of retraining a middle aged person who has lived in a small town for his/her whole life, as has his/her parents earlier. What you are really saying is “move”….and keep moving.
Dr. Drezner needs to make the drive that I recommended earlier. He lives I suppose in Medford MA. How about a drive to Utica NY, and then back via Oneonta NY – Great Barrington – Springfield – Sturbridge. Remember…no interstates. Should take a full day, but he should then understand the problem better. And, Dr. Merit Janow could benefit from such a drive.
And finally, this panel seems to be truly baffled about what exactly to do about China. I am reminded what the famous Chinese general (circa 500 BC) Sun Tzu said: “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.” And that is where we are right now, in the process of being subdued unless the West, with all of its beliefs in the Natural Rights of Man, proactively turns the tide.
Mr. Falk: THANK YOU….BRILLIANT!
Oh yeah, getting more young people to vote who don’t care, don’t pay attention, don’t know history, don’t know how the government works, and are easily influenced by the latest hot thing (Bernie Sanders)… or are just trying to endear themselves to someone by letting their politics be swayed! That’s what I want! Let’s make it compulsory!
As someone who was a young Republican and used to annoy his classmates, it’s very interesting to see how many of my high school classmates seem to agree with me on many things and are more to the right of me on other things now that it’s over 20 years later.