Obama lambasted opponents of free-trade agenda, arguing opponents are ignorant of the benefits

[JDPriestly]

98. Obama is just plain WRONG about America's readiness to enter into these trade agreements.

Obama, Hillary, most of the people who negotiate these trade agreements on behalf of the US have never actually lived for any protracted period within the economy and culture of any country that is succeeding in trading in the world and keeping a positive trade balance.

I have. I have lived in Germany and Austria among other countries and not with American pay but on the economies of the countries I have lived in.

America is not ready for free trade. Countries like Austria and Germany that can compete in international trade are organized. Their economies are not rigidly planned but they have a sense of national direction with regard to economic, industrial and environmental development.

On the economic side, I recall when we lived in Austria, a small country with a relatively well trained, well educated workforce. The news media wrote and pundits and intellectuals discussed the challenges that would face Austria in a world economy. This was maybe 30 years ago. The consensus at that time (and it was correct) that Austria should focus on developing technical capacity that would allow its industry to produce on a small scale special products that would be needed. Austria developed a national strategy for dealing with free trade. Has the United States anything of that sort? Have we even ever, as a nation, discussed or thought about what our niche or role might be in an international economy? If so, I who watch the news pretty carefully, completely missed it.

The workers in developed nations that are showing positive trade balances are trained and educated. They enjoy universal health care and secure pensions. There is a sense of confidence in the nation's ability to take care of its people while competing in the world. These nations view training and education as a national duty to the generations to come. In Austria we enjoyed universal half-day kindergarten (meaning per-school in the US) starting at the age of three. Children were prepared to start first grade. The task of preparing a child for life was not left to the haphazard abilities of a mother who could be troubled by anything from health problems to alcoholism to drug addiction. Working mothers did not have to worry about whether their child would be challenged and assisted to grow up in the important pre-school years. A higher education in Germany is harder to qualify and prepare for (or at least was when I lived there) but does not throw the educated person into years and years of debt.

As a result of the better organized society and the sense of shared obligation on the part of the body politic for the well being of members of their society, the industrialized countries that are maintaining their standards of living in spite of "free" trade (countries that include Sweden for example), countries that have a national strategy for competing in world trade are not just strong in terms of fighting the rest of the world but within them in terms of security within their countries. They do not have the problem with police brutality, for example, that we have. It isn't "us against them; fend for yourself" in the countries that are prepared to compete in the world economy.

I could say a lot more but my point is that we are entering into trade agreements like the Three Stooges entered into haunted castles. We have no national direction. We are just laying ourselves open to be battered and find ourselves in bed with the wrong partners. We are setting ourselves up to be victimized.

As for the advantages of free trade, the American trade balance speaks for itself. It's criminally high.

I know a lot of rich people will make out like bandits with the TPP. But that is what they are bandits.

I say this as one who has lived in the world. The TPP will ruin America. We are not prepared for it. We are a nation as divided as at any time since the Civil War. I seriously doubt that America as a nation will survive if we enter into yet another trade agreement. And as I understand it the TPP is only one of the trade agreements being negotiated and agreed to at this time.

It would be best for us to amend the trade agreements we have and focus on trying to have a national economic strategy -- not a rigid plan or anything approaching a rigid plan -- but a national strategy. And before we get into these international trade agreements, at the very least, we need to have a consistent national tax policy that ends the destructive practice of allowing one state or on town or one county to give tax breaks to lure companies to establish plants or businesses in their area. We don't even have one national industrial policy and we are entering into these trade agreements. We will end up a fractured, seriously divided country with one part of the country competing against the other.

These trade agreements pose a great threat to our national security -- greater than terrorism quite possibly. We just are not united enough as a country when it comes to our economy to be entering into trade agreements with other countries. We first need to come together about our economic future here before we lay ourselves open to the products and competition from countries far better organized in this area than we are.

We don't live in the late 19th or mid-20th centuries any more. We need to wake up and smell the smokestacks.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-says-he-willing-to-defy-democrats-on-his-support-of-trans-pacific-partnership/2014/12/03/25edcaf4-7b30-11e4-84d4-7c896b90abdc_story.htmlwr]