Trade War – You Can Root For Trump Or For China
By John J. Duncan Jr.
When I was a batboy for the Knoxville Smokies in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I did it for free the first and second seasons and then for $1.50 a game after that.
In return for working so cheaply, I usually got to go on two road trips each summer. This meant I got to go on long bus rides to several mid-sized cities in the south and through many small towns since these were days before the interstates.
Almost every small town seemed to have a factory or two or three. Now it is estimated that we have lost somewhere around 90,000 factories to other countries.
This did not mean we just lost factory jobs. It also led to the loss of many thousands of business management jobs, accounting, personnel, secretarial, etc.
When I graduated from U.T. in 1969, people could get a good job in business or helping run a factory with just a bachelor’s degree. Then, as those jobs slowly went away, young people felt they had to go to some type of graduate school.
A great many, possibly too many, went to law school. Others worked to get MBAs or doctorates. I once had a young man in my Knoxville office who had a PhD from Vanderbilt. He was working as a cook at Calhoun’s On The River.
We have ended up with the best-educated waiters and waitresses in the world.
The U.S. had a trade deficit of more than $900 billion last year, with over a third of that coming from China. This has meant the loss of millions of jobs.
This is what President Trump is trying to do something about. He is trying to bring thousands of jobs back to this country.
On April 25, 1987, President Reagan gave a five-minute speech from Camp David a few days in advance of a visit to Washington by the Japanese prime minister.
Reagan said he was imposing a tariff on Japanese semiconductors because Japan was engaging in unfair trade practices. He said he was “loath” to take this action because free trade was best for both workers and consumers.
However, Reagan said, “Our commitment to free trade is also a commitment to fair trade.”
Years ago, I said and wrote several times that we should tell the Chinese: “We want to trade with you. We want to do business with you. But you would never accept a trade deficit as large as we have with you. You need to start finding things you can buy from us.”
I voted against the U.S. going into the World Trade Organization and against another bill giving China ‘Most Favored’ trading status. I knew many years ago that China would use both of those laws to gain unfair advantage over us.
In the last few days, I have heard replays of speeches by Nancy Pelosi on the floor of the House in 1997 and Chuck Schumer on the floor of the Senate in 2007 urging that we get tougher on China about trade.
Most economists today seem to be against what Trump is doing on tariffs, but I think it may have more to do with their social status as college and university professors and their unpopularity on campus if they support anything Trump does.
I am not an economist, but if economists were as smart as they imply, they would all be very wealthy. Economists are all over the board. Some are even socialists.
For many years, most U.S. economists were taught theories advocated by a Big Government British economist, John Maynard Keynes.
Trump’s main economic advisor is Peter Navarro, who has a PhD in economics from Harvard.
President Truman once said what he wished he could find was a “one-armed economist.” He thought they all would say on the one hand, then on the other.
Republicans are divided to some extent between economic nationalists and free traders. Most are like me with opinions or thoughts a little in both camps.
Free trade has given us lower prices on many things. But this has come at a tremendous social cost. Many small towns and rural areas have more drug addiction and many more broken homes because there are no jobs except in fast food restaurants.
I know that many people hate Trump. But in this high stakes battle over trade, to a large extent, you can root for Trump or you can root for China.
