No, Bad Trade Deals Aren't Good for America

In what has become now a standard page out of the tired Clinton playbook, the Clinton campaign has released a letter from over 300 pro-offshoring economists denouncing Donald Trump. This appears to be a belated Hail Mary response to a September 26th letter from over 300 economists insisting “Hillary Clinton’s economic agenda is wrong for America.”

A close look at this later indicates a clear case of the dog that didn’t bark. The letter was very careful not to support Hillary Clinton’s economic plan, and it’s no secret why.

You don’t need Econ 101 to know Hillary Clinton’s plan to raise taxes, increase regulation, raise energy and electricity prices by shutting down our fossil fuel industries, and continue to ship our jobs and factories overseas through bad trade deals will reduce growth, continue stagnant wages, and leave our government without the economic growth it needs to pay for everything from new infrastructure to national defense.

You don’t need a Ph.D. in economics to know Trump’s plan to cut taxes, reduce regulation, increase oil, gas, and clean coal production, and eliminate our trade deficit by increasing exports and reducing imports will significantly increase growth, boost wages, and generate trillions in new tax revenues.

This new letter is an embarrassment to the corporate offshoring wing of the economist profession who continues to insist bad trade deals are good for America — a classic case of reality running roughshod over talking points. None of the signers have learned from the cautionary tale of MIT’s Robert Solow.

On April 25, 2000, Solow agreed to play pawn in the Clinton globalist game and throw his support to China’s 2001 entry into the World Trade Organization. Ironically, he was recruited by Clinton trade advisor Gene Sperling who personally negotiated in Beijing what has turned out to be the worst trade deal in American economic history.

Said Solow at the time, while trashing the AFL-CIO: “The U.S. stands to gain far more from China's accession to the WTO and full entry into the world trade community. We stand to gain far more than the U.S. risks losing…it’s not even close.”

Since that time, it hasn’t been close. The Sperling-Solow-Clinton China deal has cost this nation over 70,000 factories and over 5 million manufacturing jobs while our real GDP growth rate has been cut almost in half. Key states in this election, such as Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, have been at the tip of the bad Clinton trade deal spear.

From this bit of history, it is worth noting that it is also extremely bad judgement for Hillary Clinton to put Gene Sperling in charge of trade policy when he is directly responsible for the worst trade deal in American history — it’s like promoting the captain of the Exxon Valdez to admiral. Doesn’t Hillary Clinton ever learn from her mistakes?

Peter Navarro is a UC-Irvine business professor and senior policy advisor to the Trump campaign.