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Free Trade: 'Why Don't We Call A Spade A Spade?'
By Brian Sullivan
Technologies, Manufacturing & Tooling Association
We should rename "free trade" because it isn't free and it isn't fair. Since it's trade that's regulated in favor of multinational special interest groups, why don't we call it for what it is: How about "rigged market trade" or "turn your back on your fellow countrymen trade" or "throw American workers out on the street trade."
Why are we so afraid to call a spade a spade? There are 36,000 fewer U.S. factories than there were eight years ago. One in five manufacturing jobs has been lost in the last 10 years, and counting. If we don't stem the tide of multinationalism through trade law reform, then between 42 million and 56 million U.S. jobs could be moved offshore within 20 years: all 14 million current jobs in manufacturing and 28 million jobs in the service sector. The United States will be left without any manufacturing at all, which is at the core of our country's national security.
Members of our association, the Tooling, Manufacturing & Technologies Association (TMTA), wonder if things will change in time. They know that most of their woes emanate from disastrous trade laws written in Washington, D.C. Our members wonder if elected officials even care. It's clear that these elected officials trail their constituents on the critical issues of trade reform. What it boils down to is that government, at large, is unresponsive to what the electorate wants. How long can this go on?
When the concept of "free trade" was thought up, did the corporate-controlled multinationalists anticipate that America would cease to be a land of broadly shared prosperity? Did they know that the decimation of manufacturing was going to happen and decide to continue on this course anyway? The idea that the U.S. economy could regress to a pre-New Deal model where the rich claim all the wealth the nation creates while everyone else just gets by is...stunning. America wasn't supposed to be the land of "winner take all." What's happened to the concept of social morality?
It's been thrown out the window. The philosophy of corporate-controlled multinationalism has sold the middle class into a world where God is money and where people are viewed as a commodity to be used for profit. Greed is now virtue. The middle class is being destroyed and a new billionaire class is rapidly emerging.
Corporate greed feeds on itself, and U.S. manufacturing suffers. Multinationalists who drive the global economy have distanced themselves from the social contract, no longer relying on secure employment and rising standards of living to bolster consumer spending. Corporate greed has gotten so out of hand that there is no longer a philosophical agreement, even amongst themselves, that it is in their own self interest to promote a stable society by securing the safety net. How do they justify themselves?
Here's a passage from the book "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail," by Jared Diamond, a social anthropologist. He describes an American society in which "corporate elites cocoon themselves in gated communities guarded by private security, fly in corporate aircraft, depend on golden parachutes and private pensions, and send their children to prohibitively expensive private schools. Gradually these corporate elites lose their motivation to support the police force, the municipal water supply, Social Security and public schools. Any society contains a built-in blueprint for failure if corporate elites insulate themselves from the consequences of their own actions."
I suppose there are some who are reading this who are thinking that this article is leaning a little to the left. Well, actually, it's not. Increasingly, trade policy and the effects of multinationalism are not partisan issues. The vast majority of Republicans now have serious concerns about our current trade policies because they see these trade policies as being harmful to the middle class and working families of this country, according to a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll: "By a nearly two-to-one margin, Republican voters believe that free trade is bad for the U.S. economy, a shift in opinion that mirrors Democrat views and suggests new trade deals could face high hurdles under the next administration. The signs of broadening resistance to globalization and a fraying of Republican orthodoxy on the economy were also reported in this page-one news story in the WSJ."
We desperately need trade reform relief out of Washington D.C., and we need it to come from both sides of the aisle. Trade laws that benefit multinational companies have been enacted by representatives who we hire, who we pay, who we expect to represent us, but they're destroying small manufacturers.
The morally shameful "I-don't-care-about-you-because-I've-got-mine" mentality exhibited by Congress and this administration is a national disgrace. Our representatives and legislators, collectively, have been responsible for trade policy that has resulted in a cave-in of the manufacturing industry. Where are these people who were elected by us to look out for our interests? Where are these people who were supposed to be our legislative champions?
They're in Washington, alright. But a lot of the time they're not doing what they're supposed to be doing on our behalf. Instead of being at the Capitol, they're sitting in the donut shop, but they're not eating donuts: they're feeding on complacency -- our complacency.
We let the people who we've elected sit in the donut shop of big business cronyism and collusion. We let them sit in the donut shop of the sweet deal. We let them sit in the donut shop of personal self-interest at our expense. We continue to re-elect them, and we never call them on it.
A recent Gallup poll asked Americans if they've ever contacted their elected representatives. Eight out of 10 said that they never had. Yet, it's never been easier to contact members of Congress. All anyone has to do is click on www.house.gov or www.senate.gov and type in a zip code and they're automatically directed to their representative. A window automatically pops up where you can type a message to them. It takes less than two minutes, on average. Yet people don't do it.
If people whose lives are affected by manufacturing or health care or any other social issues wrote their legislators and told them that they wanted trade reform or health care reform and would be watching to see how they voted, the results of that would be staggeringly effective.
At the end of the day, there's only one way that there's going to be any relief for all of us in manufacturing and that's through Washington D.C. Most of manufacturing's problems are as a result of bad trade laws. When the grassroots electorate of this country becomes engaged in this fight, we'll change bad "free" trade laws into good "fair" trade laws that will reflect the interests of small manufacturers who've been absent from trade policy deliberations far too long.
That is what the Tooling, Manufacturing & Technologies Association is all about. That's what we do. We very aggressively advocate, politically, on behalf of small manufacturers, in Washington D.C. The TMTA doesn't host lunches or dinners. We're not a social or networking association. We're very serious advocates for small manufacturers that need our association now more than ever. We confront government officials who have substantial authority, those who chair and sit on committees and sub-committees that influence trade law. And we let our members know how they vote. We educate grassroots citizens and local opinion leaders.
We need fair trade reform and we need it now. Congress must create a National Trade Commission. Congress must pass currency manipulation legislation. Congress must address the unfair advantage caused by the rebate of VAT taxes by passing a border equalization tax. Congress has to enact countervailing duty laws. Congress has to pass laws that standardize Rules of Origin. They have to pass laws that address infrastructure imbalances including regulatory standards and enforcement standards.
Listen to what Lee Iacocca has to say about all this in his recent book, "Where Have all the Leaders Gone?": "Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind. The most famous business leaders aren't the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. And, don't tell me it's all the fault of right wing Republicans or liberal Democrats. That's an intellectually lazy argument and it's part of the reason that we're in this stew. We're not just a nation of factions. We're a people and we rise and fall together. I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your butts and do nothing and remain silent while our country is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of? Why don't you guys in Congress show some spine for a change?"
Since January 2007, when our association went national to answer the need for small manufacturers to be represented honestly in Washington D.C., we have grown from representing 21,000 member employees to now representing 50,500 member employees in 22 states. And counting. This remarkable growth shows that small manufacturers want, need and value advocacy at the federal level. The stronger our association becomes, the more clout we have in the halls of power in Washington D.C.
-- Brian Sullivan is Director of Sales, Marketing & Communications for the Tooling, Manufacturing & Technologies Association and can be reached at brian@thetmta.com or by telephone at 248.488.0300 x1307. http://www.thetmta.com
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