In mid-November, I had the pleasure of touring manufacturing plants in the Louisville, Kentucky region as the guest of the marketing consortium of the Greater Louisville Inc. Initiative. Well-known as the home of the Louisville Slugger baseball bat and the start of the “Bourbon Road” tours of bourbon and rye whiskey distilleries, Louisville has a…
It didn’t take long for the United States to lose almost 90 percent of its jobs making clothes. In 1990, there were 938,000 Americans manufacturing apparel, but their jobs started to be outsourced in earnest after NAFTA was signed in 1994, then more precipitously after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, followed…
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 23, 2015 Contact: Paola Masman, Media Director 202-688-5145, [email protected] Washington~ Yesterday, the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) reported that the third quarter growth rate (at 2% annualized) was significantly slower than second quarter growth rate (3.9% annualized) in large part because of the trade deficit. According to the report: “The deceleration in real…
President Obama expressed optimism at a Friday press conference that Congress can approve a sweeping Pacific Rim trade deal. Obama called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) “a big deal” and acknowledged that opponents in both parties make for “an interesting situation.” [ by Vicki Needham | December 18, 2015 | The Hill ] He said…
The Republican Party has split anew on one of its core tenets—free trade—and the question is how long the war will last. [Reposted from the National Journal | December 15, 2015] While the GOP has largely supported free trade for over three decades, its top-tier presidential candidates are split on the recently-struck Pacific trade accord, the most…
Last week, in light of the completion of the negotiations for the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), we examined the results of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and found that the cumulative balance of trade for all agriculture for the 1997-2014 period was -$9.6 billion. Though NAFTA was supposed to open up markets…
With a vote on a controversial free trade deal looking increasingly unlikely before the 2016 presidential election, critics warn that congressional leaders may try to push it through after the election but before new leaders take office. [ by Brendan Kirby | December 14, 2015 | Polizette] A vote on the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the so-called lame…
In October, President Obama hailed the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as “the most progressive trade deal in history.” [ by David Moberg | December 16, 2015 | In These Times] But progressive public-interest organizations say that the final text, the fruit of seven years of secretive trade talks between the United States and 11…
A Value Added Tax (VAT) is a tax on value added all throughout the supply chain as products are brought to market. In practice it is used as a tariff on imports. [ by Frank Shannon | December 16, 2015 | Mesquite Local News ] The U.S. has pursued trade agreements that multilaterally…
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