Regarding a report issued by the International Trade Commission, the Prosperous American Alliance-a pro-protection organization led by the former Nucor CEO/Chairman-stated Government research shows that apart from multinational companies, free trade agreements produce almost no benefits. :
…Between 1985 and 2017, the national GDP increased by only 0.5%, a ridiculously small increase, while real income only increased by 0.6%. Nonetheless, wage growth is almost entirely white-collar labor, further exacerbating racial and income inequality.
Imports have increased by more than 2 to 1 compared with exports. This meant that domestic production was replaced, and tens of thousands of workers in automobiles and other important manufacturing industries were laid off.
Although some of the documents used in the report date back to 2002, these studies were conducted at the peak of the consensus reached by neoliberalism on economic globalization. This can be said to be the high level of free trade preaching, and should be regarded as a good review of what these transactions have achieved and what has not been achieved; how to improve them; who has been influenced by them, no matter how good or bad they are.
on the other hand, Hill There is a different point of view:
These may not seem big, but when you consider some facts about the US Free Trade Agreement, they can be impressive.
First, apart from the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the United States does not have any free trade agreements that look like major economic prizes. The list includes Bahrain, Chile, Jordan, and Oman. It does not include the European Union (EU) or Japan. So far, establishing closer political ties with countries in the Middle East and Latin America, rather than gaining market access, has been the motivation for most US free trade agreements.
The USMCA did not take into account the ITC estimates, and it revealed several challenges inherent in the research. One is that, like the previous North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), most chapters of the USMCA address non-tariff barriers and other difficult-to-quantify issues. Unlike tariffs, they do not work through price. For example, they are about reducing red tape and making regulations more transparent. ITC acknowledges that this prevents a more comprehensive accounting of the benefits of trade liberalization. To put it mildly.
Second, the US Free Trade Agreement has recently become deeper and broader, but the USMCA has not been included in the scope of the study, and President Trump has also withdrawn from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. This makes ITC have to pay attention to some outdated agreements, such as the 2012 US-South Korea agreement. The reality is that without modern “WTO+” clauses, free trade agreements will have to reshape what the United States has already acquired through the WTO, making them less favorable.
This International Trade Commission Report Actually noticed:
The committee estimates that, to a quantifiable range, these agreements have had a small but positive impact on the U.S. economy. In 2017 (the base year), they led to an estimated increase of US$88.8 billion (0.5%) in the real GDP of the United States, and according to a model, the total employment in the United States increased by 485,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs (0.3%). The economy is at a long-term level of full employment. The U.S. trade agreement has also had a positive impact on U.S. imports and exports, especially with its free trade agreement partners. However, the committee also found that employment growth is uneven, and it is estimated that the employment growth of university-educated male workers is the largest.
The results are shown in Table ES-1:
As a fourth point, I would like to say that 0.5% of US GDP is actually unimportant, especially considering that this is a lower limit, because many non-tariff barrier removal effects are ignored.
Narrator: If Rashomon refers to avoidance, there will always be anger.
