In the middle of an editorial in favor of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, the managed trade pact with eleven Pacific Rim countries, the editors of the Wall Street Journal have managed to make a pretty good case against it:
The U.S. has trade pacts with 20 markets around the world, and those markets account for 47% of U.S. goods exports, according to the U.S. International Trade Administration. U.S. goods exports to trade-pact countries rose 64% from 2009 to 2014, far more rapidly than the 45% growth with the rest of the world.
Exports have increased by 415% with Chile (trade pact in 2004); 378% with Mexico (1994); 111% with Canada (1994); 90% with Australia (2005); 84% with Singapore (2004); 74% with Central America (2006); 61% with Peru (2009); 42% with Colombia (2012) and 26% with Panama (2012) since the respective trade deals took effect.
or, in other words, we already have bilateral “free trade” agreements with countries accounting for most of the trade we have with the countries of the TPP. How, specifically, does the TPP benefit us, given the presence of those agreements?
With the exception of Japan. Before rendering judgment on the agreement, I’d like to know the details. I cannot believe that Japan will surrender its agricultural subsidies, quotas, etc. (or that we will surrender ours).
The arguments in favor of the agreement nearly all surround Ricardo’s teachings about free trade. Nothing that Ricardo ever wrote supports the idea that trade cannot be managed to benefit one trading partner at the expense of the other. Whatever emerges from the agreement we can be confident that it won’t be free trade. Free trade would require us to abandon not only our agricultural subsidies but our intellectual property laws and occupational licensing. Does anyone really believe that will happen?
What the agreement will do is pick winners and losers. So, the devil, as they say, is in the details and the details are being kept under lock and key.
