I am pleased that the report released today by the Department of Labor in response to our submission on Colombia’s Free Trade Agreement found significant evidence of inadequate labor inspection and enforcement, abusive subcontracting, failure to prosecute threats and violence against unionists and other failures. While the report is an important first step towards ensuring…
Don’t expect lawmakers to quietly accept President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to use congressionally granted authorities to hike tariffs against offending countries, which could potentially spark trade wars. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is already leading an effort to find ways to rein in some of the executive power Trump would have on trade. [Adam Behsudi| January…
Washington~ The Coalition for a Prosperous America’s research center has found, in an economic analysis of federal government data, that every $1 billion increase in imports causes a loss of 4,552 US jobs. Globalization advocates often claim job gains from exports, but fail to include the import displacement side of the equation. “We wanted to calculate…
Apple is seeking permission to conduct “high-tech manufacturing” and to build data-center server gear in a Mesa, Arizona, facility, according to a notice published Monday by the US federal government. [Kif Leswing| January 9, 2017 |Business Insider] A notification published in the Federal Register on Monday said Apple was looking for approval from the Foreign-Trade Zones…
As Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, makes the rounds on Capitol Hill this week, members of the Senate Finance Committee are gearing up for a confirmation hearing they say could involve questions about the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the nominee’s stance on how to tap new export markets for the U.S. agriculture…
“Inept, Inexperienced” Steelmaker Delivered Structure With Cracks & Defects From 2006 to 2013, California’s state transportation agency Caltrans rebuilt the Bay Bridge, California’s second most famous bridge, which connects San Francisco to the Oakland-Berkeley area across San Francisco Bay. The rebuilding project attracted enormous controversy, due to delays, numerous flaws and defects found in the…
In 1965, when we imported less, manufacturing employed 24% of the U.S. workforce. By 2015, substantial portions of our manufacturing base had moved overseas, and domestic manufacturing had shrunk to just 9% of employment. [Frank Berlage| January 7, 2017 |Barrons] The U.S. has now run a trade deficit for 40 years, and at present levels…
The 2016 elections threw a bucket of cold water into the face of free-trade orthodoxy. It’s no surprise that voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere are deeply discouraged by decades of failed promises of boon from establishment leaders. The real surprise is, what took us so long? [Stan Sorscher| January 10, 2017 |The Huffington…
by Michael Stumo With the election behind us and the new administration in front of us, what can you expect from CPA and its bipartisan membership this year? The short answer is that we will consolidate our trade wins and shoot for more. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is dead, so our campaign to kill it ended…
by Michael Stumo The American Economics Association is fretting the fact that their economic theories are no longer trusted. University education material is starting to include criticisms of and alternatives to old trade theory that is impervious to acknowledgement of glaring and persistent failures. On the second point, I just had a long interview with…