Quote:
Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
I return to my observation that you keep repeating the mantra "free trade" in a way that is unclear. When you talk about non-tariff trade barriers, that can include a whole bunch of different things that prevent companies in different country from competing on an equal footing. When I talk about "free trade," this is what I am talking about -- trade across borders. The way you're using the term, in sounds like anything that departs from an anarcho-libertarian fantasy of a straight common-law regime without any other form of government regulation is a "free trade" problem. You are welcome to use the term that way, but it's getting in the way of meaningful conversation.
Government can subsidize industry by giving it money. Or, by permitting it to pollute the air. Or, by ostensibly barring it from polluting the air, but by establishing really, really flimsy fines for doing so. (I recognize that you would use the word "subsidy" to refer only to cash payments, but an economic perspective requires you to think about it more broadly, and surely business understands that being permitted to pollute is worth money, e.g. the money saved by not having to upgrade equipment.) If you're in an industry -- say, chemicals -- where worrying about air pollution is a very important part of the business, and you are forced to compete with foreign companies whose governments wink and look the other way when they pollute the air, you've got a free trade problem in my book.
So-called free trade agreements can be used to weaken this country's environmental laws (or other laws, but for the sake of simplicity, I'll stick to the environment), directly or indirectly. (E.g. directly, by containing provisions that, when the treaty is adopted by Congress, trump our laws.) I take it from your response that you are in favor of this. If so, please don't pretend that it has anything to do with "free trade" as that term is usually used by other people -- what you are advocating is not levelling the playing field for U.S. companies and workers and their foreign counterparts, but weakening the environmental laws in the name of economic growth. We can have that conversation, but it's not a conversation about "free trade."
Not at all. Free trade can be a win-win, if you improve another country's situation by both eliminating tariffs and by improving environmental and workplace protections.
Since you have a Democrat who has supported every other free-trade pact for twenty years saying that this is a bad one, perhaps you ought to be wondering why.
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You idea of a level playing field is an unatainable goal. It simply can't happend.
Please answer this directly?
1) By your definition there is not a level playing field between California and Alabama (Alabama has lower minimum wage, less environmental regulations and less workplace protection).
and therefore, there is no free trade between California and Alabama.
2) And following your line of reasoning (if it was possible) shouldn't California institute tariffs against Alabama until they "level the playing field".
