After the failed promises of NAFTA, a job-destroying trade deficit that has burgeoned despite a long series of free-trade agreements, and ever-more-aggressive foreign mercantilism, we're plowing ahead with even more of these agreements.
Fresh from passing the Colombia, Korea, and Panama free trade agrements, now Obama wants to move forward to the long-bruited but dormant proposal for a Trans-Pacific Partnership.
Not the man we voted for in 2008, is he?
The proposed agreement would embrace Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam to start. Eventually, its advocates hope, it will include every nation on the Pacific rim, including Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, Mexico, Russia, and China.
Yes, you read that right. China.
Goes without saying that it's a terrible idea, and I've made a video discussing why. See below:
Don't look for any hope from the other side, by the way.
Ian Fletcher is Senior Economist of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, a nationwide grass-roots organization dedicated to fixing America's trade policies and comprising representatives from business, agriculture, and labor. He was previously Research Fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, a Washington think tank, and before that, an economist in private practice serving mainly hedge funds and private equity firms. Educated at Columbia University and the University of Chicago, he lives in San Francisco. He is the author of Free Trade Doesn't Work: What Should Replace It and Why.
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