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Title: Trump threatens to 'break' trade pact with Mexico, Canada
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URL Source: http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box ... -trade-pact-with-mexico-canada
Published: Sep 26, 2015
Author: Meghashyam Mali
Post Date: 2015-09-26 10:59:20 by A K A Stone
Keywords: None
Views: 3469
Comments: 43
Donald Trump is calling the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) a "disaster" and vowing to renegotiate or break the deal if elected president. "It's a disaster," Trump told CBS's Scott Pelley in an interview airing Sunday on "60 Minutes." "We will either renegotiate it or we will break it because you know every agreement has an end. "Every agreement has to be fair. Every agreement has a defraud claim. We're being defrauded by all these countries," Trump continued. Pressed on whether he supports free trade, Trump responded, "We need fair trade, not free trade. We need fair trade it's got to be fair." Trump has blasted trade policies, accusing leaders of allowing China and Mexico to steal U.S. jobs and hurt American workers. The GOP front-runner also opposed granting President Obama fast-track trade powers. Poster Comment: People who support NAFTA are sell outs to America. They just want cheap goods at the expense of the American workers. Screw them. I hope Trump has all the people who voted for NAFTA put on trial for treason. Traitorous assholes.
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#7. To: A K A Stone (#0)
Trump once again proved he's an illiterate when it comes to trade policy . US exports have risen for 5 consecutive years, reaching a record $2.35 Trillion in 2014. Most of our exports go to Canada and Mexico (the third larges consumer of US exports is China) . https://www.commerce.gov/news/press-releases/2015/02/us-exports-hit-new-annual- record-reaching-235-trillion-2014 http://trade.gov/press/publications/newsletters/ita_0706/nafta_0706.asp
So, how do you explain the decline in US manufacturing, decline in US employment, and the increase in the US national debt?
So, how do you explain the decline in US manufacturing, decline in US employment, and the increase in the US national debt? you'll have to define your word 'decline' . The U.S. manufacturing sector produces more stuff almost every year than it did the year before (with allowances for the 2008 recession) . We manufactured more stuff in 2014 than ever before in the country's history . So why have manufacturing jobs 'declined' ? For a couple reasons. First manufacturing is far more efficient than it's ever was . Second ,American workers have moved on for the most part away from manufacturing to other jobs they are needed in or prefer to be employed in . The truth is that American manufacturing is not declining ...and it is part of a robust export industry . I can tell you that my company almost always has openings in our manufacturing plants; from entry level to skilled laborers .... and rarely does an 'American' apply. It's not a matter of pay either . Our workers start at higher salaries than most of the service level jobs Americans prefer to do . I can explain the US debt easily . The US GOVERNMENT spends too much money ...way too much money . When was the last time there was an actual reduction in spending ? Even when budgets get modestly cut ,all they really do is temporarily reduce the rate of growth of spending .
Whether U.S. manufacturing is at its highest depends on what one is measuring. I only find the claim to be true as a measurement made in current dollar sales, as opposed to constant or real dollar sales. That does not measure more widgets, but more sales dollars, valued in inflated currency. Putting U.S. Manufacturing Growth In Perspective By Thomas Hemphill & Mark Perry Over the last few years, the U.S. manufacturing sector has been lauded by the media as a primary driver of the nation's recovery from the Great Recession. And since 2010, the manufacturing sector has been a positive contributor to both new job creation and the nation's gross domestic product (GDP). But its economic and employment impacts have been, in the context of recent economic history, less than the national media coverage justifies. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) there were 17,619,000 Americans employed in the manufacturing sector in January 1998; by January 2010, this figure had declined to 11,462,000, or 6,157,000 factory jobs lost in 12 years - an average annual decline of 513,000 jobs and a 35 percent overall decline in manufacturing employment over a 12-year period. Focusing on the last decade, the BLS employment data offer a sobering perspective on the manufacturing sector's growth in employment in recent years. Between 2010-2014, 762,000 new U.S. manufacturing jobs were created over that five-year period, at an annual average rate of 152,400 new jobs. In contrast, during the preceding five-year period (2005 to 2009), 2.8 million manufacturing jobs were lost in the U.S. economy, or an average decline of 562,200 jobs per year. Placed in perspective, this means that only 762,000 and about 27 percent of the 2.8 million manufacturing jobs lost during the five years between 2005 and 2009 were actually recovered in the last five years (2010-2014) of economic recovery. And compared to the start of the Great Recession, American manufacturers employ 1.4 million fewer factory workers today than in December 2007. So while the manufacturing sector has rebounded in recent years, its contribution to economic and employment growth in recent years has been rather muted, lagging behind many other more vibrant sectors. [...] http://www.ibtimes.com/analysis-renaissance-us-manufacturing-real-maybe-not-what-you-think-1552997 By Meagan Clark America’s heavy manufacturing was once a source of national pride. Think of Rosie the Riveter posters during World War II or the huge post-war factories that shaped skylines of cities like Cleveland and Pittsburgh. In the 20th century, America’s factories produced more than those of any other country. But as the 20th century ended, the once-mighty sector started contracting. Manufacturers discovered cheaper labor overseas. Many factories in the U.S. began closing. And then in late 2007 came the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. To many it seemed like the final nail in the coffin of American manufacturing. In fact, between 2000 and 2009, 5.8 million factory jobs disappeared. By 2010, the manufacturing dominance America had relied on since the late 1800s was officially over; that year China supplanted the U.S. as the world’s largest manufacturing nation in terms of output, producing goods worth $1.92 trillion compared to America’s $1.86 trillion, according to United Nations data. Yet in the years since the financial crisis, U.S. manufacturing has begun reinventing itself and rising again. There is indeed a renaissance in American manufacturing, economists say, and one that can still be a source of pride. But the sector looks far different from the past, offering fewer jobs and demanding higher skills than ever before. Since 2010, the U.S. has regained a net 568,000 factory jobs. The Reshoring Initiative, an organization aiming to “return manufacturing home,” estimates that about 150 companies have “reshored,” or moved positions from overseas to the U.S. since 2010, contributing about 80,000 jobs or 15 percent of the total manufacturing jobs added. [...] Manufacturing’s dollar-share of gross domestic product increased in 2012 for the third consecutive year to 12.5 percent, its highest share of GDP since 2007, though still less than half its contribution during the 1950s. [...] 47 pp. THE SURPRISINGLY SWIFT DECLINE OF U.S. MANUFACTURING EMPLOYMENT Justin R. Pierce NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH Schott thanks the National Science Foundation (SES-0241474 and SES-0550190) for research support. [...] ABSTRACT This paper finds a link between the sharp drop in U.S. manufacturing employment after 2001 and the elimination of trade policy uncertainty resulting from the U.S. granting of permanent normal trade relations to China in late 2000. We find that industries where the threat of tariff hikes declines the most experience greater employment loss due to suppressed job creation, exaggerated job destruction and a substitution away from low-skill workers. We show that these policy-related employment losses coincide with a relative acceleration of U.S. imports from China, the number of U.S. firms importing from China, the number of Chinese firms exporting to the U.S., and the number of U.S.-China importer-exporter pairs. [...] https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42135.pdf Marc Levinson Congressional Research Service Summary The health of the U.S. manufacturing sector has long been of great concern to Congress. The decline in manufacturing employment since the start of the 21st century has stimulated particular congressional interest. The Obama Administration has undertaken a variety of related initiatives, and Members have introduced hundreds of bills intended to support domestic manufacturing activity in various ways. The proponents of such measures frequently contend that the United States is by various measures falling behind other countries in manufacturing, and they argue that this relative decline can be mitigated or reversed by government policy. This report is designed to inform the debate over the health of U.S. manufacturing through a series of charts and tables that depict the position of the United States relative to other countries according to various metrics. Understanding which trends in manufacturing reflect factors that may be unique to the United States and which are related to broader changes in technology or consumer preferences may be helpful in formulating policies intended to aid firms or workers engaged in manufacturing activity. This report does not describe or discuss specific policy options. The main findings are the following: • Manufacturing output has grown more rapidly in the United States over the past decade than in most European countries and Japan, although it has lagged China, Korea, and other countries in Asia. • Employment in manufacturing has fallen in most major manufacturing countries over the past two decades. The United States saw a disproportionately large drop between 2000 and 2010, but its decline in manufacturing employment since 1990 is in line with the changes in several European countries and Japan. • U.S. manufacturers spend far more on research and development (R&D) than those in any other country, but manufacturers’ R&D spending is rising more rapidly in China, Korea, and Taiwan. • Manufacturers in all major manufacturing countries appear to be spending increasing amounts on R&D, relative to their value added. U.S. manufacturers spend approximately 11% of value added on R&D, an increase of approximately three percentage points since the 2000-2002 period. A very large proportion of U.S. manufacturers’ R&D takes place in high-technology sectors, particularly pharmaceutical, electronics, and aircraft manufacturing, whereas in most other countries a far greater proportion of manufacturers’ R&D outlays occur in medium-technology sectors such as motor vehicle and machinery manufacturing. [...] How the U.S. Manufacturing Sector Ranks The standard measure of the size of a nation’s manufacturing sector is not manufacturers’ sales, but rather their value added. Value added attempts to capture the economic contribution of manufacturers in designing, processing, and marketing the products they sell. At the level of an individual firm, value added can be calculated as total sales less the total cost of purchased inputs, such as raw materials and electricity. The intuition behind this calculation is that a firm that purchases raw materials and processes them only slightly may have substantial sales, but its manufacturing efforts will not have transformed the materials in ways that significantly increase their value. Alternatively, a firm’s value added can be measured as the sum of its employee compensation, business taxes (less subsidies), and profits. The size of a country’s manufacturing sector cannot be determined simply by adding up the value added of its manufacturers. If a domestic manufacturer uses inputs from its plants abroad, those inputs contain value added by the firm, but not domestically. Calculating total value added in manufacturing thus requires adjustments for imported parts and components incorporated into the output of domestic factories, and also for domestic products that were exported and used in a foreign plant to make products that were subsequently imported.1 According to United Nations estimates, China displaced the United States as the largest manufacturing nation in 2010. In 2013, according to the U.N. figures, China’s value added in manufacturing reached $2.7 trillion, compared to $2.0 trillion for the United States. These estimates are calculated in U.S. dollars, and China’s rise relative to the United States is partially due to the fact that its currency, the yuan, strengthened 25% against the dollar between 2003 and 2013.2 Japan ranked third in manufacturing value added at $917 billion in 2013 (see Figure 1). Germany is the only other country whose manufacturing sector is more than one-sixth the size of that in the United States.3 Data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis indicate that U.S. manufacturing value added rose 1.1% in 2013 after adjustment for inflation. The U.S. share of global manufacturing value added has declined over time, from 30% in the early 1980s to 17%-18% today (see Figure 2). Similarly, Japan’s share of global manufacturing value added has contracted from 21% in 1993 to around 8% now, and Germany’s has fallen from 10% (in 1990, just after reunification) to 6%. It is important to note that global shares are measured in U.S. dollars, so each country’s share in a given year is greatly affected by the strength of its currency against the dollar. The declining shares of the wealthy economies are a consequence of the very rapid increase in manufacturing activity in emerging economies, notably China, and do not necessarily indicate absolute declines in manufacturing value added. Manufacturing value added in the United States, as measured by the Bureau of Economic Analysis in inflation-adjusted 2009 dollars, rose 40% from 1997 to 2014, although not until the second quarter of 2014 did manufacturing activity exceed the level at the onset of the most recent recession in 2007.4 Manufacturing value added amounted to 12.1% of total U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013, according to United Nations calculations. Manufacturing is more significant in the United States, relative to the size of the economy, than in the United Kingdom, France, and Canada, but much less important than in Japan, Germany, Indonesia, Korea, and China (see Figure 3). Chinese manufacturing value added accounted for 29.9% of its economy’s total output in 2013, according to the U.N. The manufacturing share in China has declined in recent years, while the share in the United States has remained relatively stable. In this respect, it is important to note that a high ratio of manufacturing value added to GDP is not necessarily a sign of economic vibrancy. To the contrary, a high ratio may indicate that various policies or practices, such as labor regulations, credit subsidies, or protection from imports, are standing in the way of a reallocation of capital and labor from manufacturing to other sectors in which they might contribute more to economic growth. It does appear U.S. manufacturing is at its highest point in current U.S. dollars. That would be current as opposed to constant or real dollars. https://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/dollars.html Income Current versus Constant (or Real) Dollars In order to accurately compare income over time, users should adjust the summary measures (medians, means, etc.) for changes in cost of living. The Census Bureau uses the Bureau of Labor Statistics' (BLS) Consumer Price Index (CPI-U) to adjust for changes in the cost of living.1 Current dollars is a term describing income in the year in which a person, household, or family receives it. For example, the income someone received in 1989 unadjusted for inflation is in current dollars. Constant or real dollars are terms describing income after adjustment for inflation. The Dictionary of Business and Economics defines constant dollar values and real income as shown below. Constant-dollar value (also called real-dollar value) is a value expressed in dollars adjusted for purchasing power. Constant-dollar values represent an effort to remove the effects of price changes from statistical series reported in dollar terms. The result is a series as it would presumably exist if prices were the same throughout as they were in the base year-in other words, as if the dollar had constant purchasing power. Real Income. The purchasing power of the income of an individual, group, or nation, computed by adjusting money income to price changes. A comparison between incomes earned during 1970 and 1980, for example, would be pointless unless 1970 and 1980 price levels were identical. Using a price index showing, for example, that average consumer prices increased by 50 percent between those years, it becomes clear that $1,000 in 1980 bought what $667 bought in 1970. Thus, even if total income actually doubled, real income would double only if prices remained constant. EXAMPLE: The median household income in 1989 in current dollars is $28,906. If you compared that with the 1990 median household income of $29,943, there appears to be an increase. If you adjusted that 1989 income for changes in the cost of living (converted it to 1990 constant or real dollars), the resulting 1989 median household income is $30,468 (now a 1989-to-1990 comparison of income shows a decline of 1.7 percent). Footnote: 1. The Census Bureau uses BLS' experimental Consumer Price Index (CPI-U-X1) for 1967 through 1982 and the CPI-U for 1983 through 1998. The Census Bureau derived the CPI-U indexes for years before 1967 by applying the 1967 CPI-U-X1-to-CPI-U ratio to the 1947 to 1966 CPI-U indexes.
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#20. To: tomder55 (#7)
" US exports have risen for 5 consecutive years, reaching a record $2.35 Trillion in 2014. Most of our exports go to Canada and Mexico (the third larges consumer of US exports is China). "
#24. To: Stoner (#20)
So, how do you explain the decline in US manufacturing, decline in US employment, and the increase in the US national debt?
#33. To: tomder55, Stoner (#24)
you'll have to define your word 'decline' . The U.S. manufacturing sector produces more stuff almost every year than it did the year before (with allowances for the 2008 recession) . We manufactured more stuff in 2014 than ever before in the country's history .
February 9, 2015
ANALYSIS: The Renaissance Of US Manufacturing Is Real But Maybe Not What You Think
ibtimes.com
February 04 2014 6:53 AM EST NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES
Peter K. Schott
Working Paper 18655
http://www.nber.org/papers/w18655
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
December 2012 U.S. Manufacturing in International Perspective
Section Research Manager
March 17, 2015
7-5700
www.crs.gov
R42135 • China displaced the United States as the largest manufacturing country in 2010, as the United States’ share of global manufacturing activity declined from 30% in 2002 to 17.4% in 2012.
United States Census Bureau
Replies to Comment # 33.
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