Free Trade?
A Wall Street Journal poll reports that Republicans by a nearly two-to-one margin believe free trade hurts the American economy.
This is a shift away from previous Republican support of free trade.
These issues are difficult because we can’t pull back from the rest of the world.
I feel the core of the matter is that neither party is being up-front about what free trade really means.
We’ve lived at a level of consumption and debt that the realities of the world will no longer permit.
At the same time we’ve allowed corporations to get the upper-hand with workers.
As citizens we’ve not asked ourselves the tough questions of how should we live and about the well-being of people in emerging economies.
Will any political leader ever step up to the truth and the hard facts on these issues?
It is very difficult for average people to work this stuff out without help.
At the Dearborn debate, it will be interesting to see if any of the front-running GOP candidates stand up for American manufacturing and state what specific steps they’ll take to enforce U.S. trade law and hold cheating countries like China accountable for illegal trade practices. I thought Scott Paul hit this on the head in his Huffington Post comment:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/scott-paul/stop-the-presses-republi_b_67613.html
Steven -
Thanks for your comments. I don’t think you will anything like we will stand up for the rights of workers. You will hear stuff about the American Worker being the best and hardest working in the world. Then the GOP candidates will slide into their very comfortable “free trade” argument. Next you will hear something about China and India needing to open their markets to more American goods. That’s the problem. The problem is China and those other guys will not open their markets.
I don’t think that you will hear anything about what American companies need to do.