How the next US president can rescue global trade and resuscitate the American workforce
Trade policy is among the issues prompting U.S. voters to coalesce around Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump as presumptive nominees for president. Clinton opposes the Trans-Pacific Partnership, calling for a crackdown on trade violations and more enforcement; Trump is critical of nearly all trade agreements, vowing to get tough with top partners like Mexico and China. “The problem is not with the trade agreements,” argues Jeffrey E. Garten, author and emeritus dean of the Yale School of Management, in a memo to the candidates, but “with America’s failure to create policies at home that equip workers to adjust to rapid import penetration and to exploit new opportunities that trade could bring.” Garten, who participated in trade negotiations for four presidential administrations, both Republican and Democrat, concedes that the United States and other countries failed to manage a flood of imports as globalization went into overdrive. He urges the next president to prepare for a new global economy, crafting policies so workers can anticipate trends and adjust to new technologies. Until then, Garten calls for a moratorium on passage of any U.S. trade agreements.
US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks in New York on May 3, 2016, following the primary in Indiana. Republican Party chief Reince Priebus declared Tuesday that Donald Trump will be the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, after his main rival Ted Cruz dropped out of the race.JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images
I’m writing to you both as presumptive presidential candidates for America’s two major political parties. The focus is on trade policy, a subject that has aroused so much emotion among the electorate and looms so important in both your campaigns, contributing to the growth of the United States and world economies, to jobs here and abroad, and to the way America engages with the rest of the world.
As seemingly endless and shallow as our political process is for picking nominees for the highest office in the land, the primaries do allow big issues to come to the fore in a way that might otherwise not happen—at least in a peaceful manner. And so it has been with trade. Both of you have taken clear stands. You, Secretary Clinton, have said that the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is deficient and that you would not support it. You, Mr. Trump, have roundly condemned virtually all trade agreements, suggesting that the problem is American negotiators have been inept and stupid, to boot.
