Today’s Free Trade Fact of the Day comes from Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiw who wrote Sunday in the New York Times: Economists are, overwhelmingly, free traders. A 2006 poll of Ph.D. members of the American Economic Association found that 87.5 percent agreed that “the U.S. should eliminate remaining tariffs and other barriers to trade.” … With the two political parties apparently divided on trade policy, you might expect those free-trade-loving economists to be predominantly Republicans. But that’s not the case. One reason is that economists are not single-issue voters. …
Today’s Free Trade Fact of the Day comes from Ohio native and U.S. Chamber of Commerce VP for international affairs Daniel Christman who writes in the Cincinnati Enquirer: Facts are stubborn things, and so it is with trade in general and the North American Free Trade Agreement in particular. Contrary to what some of the candidates are saying, Ohio is benefiting from trade and from NAFTA in extraordinary ways, and no one more than the state’s manufacturers. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, 55 percent of all Ohio exports …
Today’s Free Trade Fact of the Day comes from Hudson Institute fellow Rod Hunter who wrote last week in the Wall Street Journal: Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both claim to be ready to be president on “day one.” But on the campaign trail, both are pandering to organized labor and other antitrade activists on the left. Mrs. Clinton … is now calling for a “time out” from any new trade pacts. Mr. Obama … wants to renegotiate Nafta. It is true that there is a lot of churning as …
As Michael Gerson points out today, if his promises are worth anything, Barack Obama’s first 100 days will include “arm-twisting Mexico and Canada into a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.” In yesterday’s International Herald Tribune, American University Center for North American Studies director Robert Pastor defended NAFTA from the latest liberal protectionist rhetoric: NAFTA’s goals were to reduce and eventually eliminate trade and investment barriers, and it did that. From 1993 to 2006, trade among the United States, Mexico and Canada tripled – from $289 billion to …
Since Hillary Clinton appears to owe a big part of her victory in Ohio to capitalizing on anti-free trade sentiment in Ohio, we are all but guaranteed to endure another seven weeks on anti-trade rhetoric before the April 22nd Pennsylvania primary. To counteract progressive fearmongering on trade, we offer you today’s NAFTA Myth of the Day courtesy of Heritage’s own Ambassador Terry Miller: According to reports issued last month by the Department of Commerce, the U.S. economy grew by 50 percent during NAFTA’s first 13 years. Contrary to Perot’s gloomy …
As we have amply demonstrated before, our trade partners are not happy with the latest promises from liberal presidential candidates to unilaterally pull out of NAFTA unless Canada and Mexico agree to “renegotiate on terms that are favorable to all of America.” Liberal MP Mark Holland told Canadian TV he doesn’t appreciate “NAFTA being used as a political football — a lot of games being played with something very serious.” Now Newsweek‘s Fareed Zakaria tells us that U.S. trade partners throughout the world are also distressed by the latest round …
The checks from the first stimulus package have not even been mailed yet and already the Senate is contemplating another $75 to $95 billion deficit spending spree. This time they want to give away more federal dollars in jobless benefits, food stamps, heating bills, and new infrastructure. Before Congress breaks out the checkbook again, maybe they should take a look at how their own policies are putting the squeeze on the vary families they are trying to help. For starters, the House energy bill passed Wednesday can only harm the …
Liberals have always believed that higher taxes are great for the U.S. economy and both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama promise to raise taxes as soon as they enter office. But back when the best hope for liberal causes came out of Arkansas and not Illinois, it was consensus in some liberal circles that trade liberalization was essential for our nation’s economic growth. Now that there is a contested primary underway, however, liberals now all believe that free trade is the greatest threat to American jobs there is today. So …
Upon their return from Colombia, People’s Weekly World reported that a delegation led by AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez Thompson “met with leaders of the major Colombian labor federations who told them they were opposed” to the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (TPA) because of “the harmful effects the deal would have on Colombian workers.” What People’s Weekly neglected to mention was that the U.S. labor delegation went out of its way to avoid any encounters with the heads of the many trade unions in Colombia that support the deal. …
