Trade debates are making for strange bedfellows. Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.) this week published a set of concerns on trade promotion authority (TPA) that look like they were drafted by a labor union. The concerns include statements about trade deficits, immigration and other matters at odds with both facts and conservative economic principles.
The pure economic issues are trade deficits and currency manipulation. Here, Sessions’s belief is essentially that it’s bad to buy imports. The same view urges the government to slap taxes on imported goods — taxes on ordinary Americans — so people will not buy what they truly want. It’s hostile to free and open commerce.
It’s also wrong on the facts. Most protectionists, apparently including Sessions, think more imports mean fewer jobs. No one can ever show this in the real world; instead, it’s just assumed to be true. But jobs are not lost when imports rise.
The complete text for this article is available online at The Hill.
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