A bunch of lawmakers — led by Reps. Defazio (D, OR), Slaughter (D, NY), Kaptur (D, OH) and Massa (D, NY) — recently introduced a bill (H.R. 1875) to establish an “Emergency Commission To End the Trade Deficit.” The House passed the bill by voice vote this afternoon.
After drawing Congress’ attention to a whole lot of scary-sounding data about the trade deficit (my colleague Dan Griswold explains why that metric is misleading as an indicator of national wellbeing), the national debt (which I agree is a problem) and the supposed death of manufacturing, the bill calls for a $2 million (for now) Commission, the purpose of which is to:
develop a trade policy plan to eliminate the United States merchandise trade deficit by January 1, 2019, and to develop a competitive trade policy for the 21st century. The plan shall include strategies necessary to achieve a balance of trade that fully reflects the competitiveness and productivity of the United States and also improves the standard of living of United States citizens. [my emphasis]
It is as though the standard of living for Americans over the past few decades of trade deficits had been falling, rather than rising. As though a balance of trade was an end in itself.
A lot of the Commission’s work would be “merely” reporting on various aspects of our trade relationship with the rest of the world. But I do not for one second think that these lawmakers will be happy to take the Commission’s report and forget about it. They’ll want to torture that data until it confesses what they want, and then they’ll want to take action based on that confession. My hunch isn’t totally baseless, either. Plenty of clues lie in section 4(5), for example, which asks the Commission for suggestions for:
Read the rest of this post →(A) the development of bilateral and multilateral trade relationships based on market access reciprocity; [i.e., managed trade]
(B) the retention and expansion of the manufacturing, agricultural, and technology sectors in the United States; [sounds like a call for protection]
(C) the discouragement of the expatriation of United States plants, jobs, and production to countries that have achieved competitive advantages by permitting lower wages or lower health, safety, and environmental standards, or by imposing requirements with respect to investment, performance, or other obligations; [ditto]