Obama's midwest bus tour backfires

From: Rick Kisséll

Sent: Tuesday, August 16, 2011 4:18 PM

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/aug/16/obama-free-trade-midwest

 

Obama's midwest bus tour message backfires

 

The president's attempt to cast himself as pro-business won't win

Voters whose jobs have been killed by free trade deals

 

by Daniel Denvir

The GuardianU.K.: 8/16/11

 

While on a bus tour this week across a midwest ravaged by

deindustrialisation, President Barack Obama has ironically

been touting job-killing free trade agreements.

 

Mitt Romney deemed the road trip, which goes through an archipelago of

shuttered factories and mills, as Obama's "Magical Misery Tour", though

the former governor and CEO would undoubtedly promote the same free

trade policies even more fervently. Obama won Minnesota, Iowa and

Illinois in 2008, but is set to lose them in 2012 if he remains on the

free trade bandwagon. Last week, he visited Michigan, the epicentre of

American manufacturing's decimation.

 

A May report from the liberal Economic Policy Institute

finds that the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta), which was

primarily touted as a job creator, has cost the US 682,900 jobs, 61% of

them in manufacturing. Many jobs have moved south to Mexico,

resulting in a switch in the two countries' trade deficit. In 1993, the

US had a $1.6bn trade surplus with Mexico; in 2010, the tides turned

and Mexico held a trade surplus of $97.2bn over the US.

 

The consequences of Nafta have not been positive in Mexico, either: the

US has seen a historic flow of Mexican immigrants across the border,

driven by the closure of plants unable to compete with transnational

companies, the elimination of peasant agriculture, and rising consumer

prices have driven a wave of immigrants across the US border. This

convoy of economic refugees has weakened only recently, mostly due to

the downturn.

 

It shouldn't be surprising that free trade agreements are unpopular,

though politicians don't seem to comprehend it. According to the findings

of an underreported November 2010 poll by the Pew Research Center, only

35% of Americans say that free trade agreements have benefited the

US, while 44% say the country has been harmed. The study even found

that Republican support for free trade has plummeted from 44% in

November 2009, to a rock bottom 28% in 2010.

 

"Support for free trade agreements is now at one of its lowest points

in 13 years of Pew Research Centre surveys," the report concludes. Indeed,

63% of Tea Party-leaning Republicans have a negative outlook on NAFTA –

more than any other group polled.

 

Obama once seemed to understand the deep-seated popular opposition to

free trade. During the 2008 election, he released a mailer

attacking Hillary Clinton, whose husband signed NAFTA: "Is Hillary

Clinton running away from her own record on trade deals that have cost

Ohio nearly 50,000 jobs?"

 

But once again, Obama's ham-handed efforts to "reach across the aisle"

alienates the left while failing to appease rank-and-file Republican voters.

We have a service economy with the manufacturing middle hollowed out. Elites

consider financial  services to be our contribution to the new global economic

order: Mexico and China make stuff; we package and sell opaque financial

instruments.

 

The financial crisis was the product of a government more concerned

with defending this status quo and protecting profits on Wall Street

than with creating and defending well-paying American manufacturing

jobs. But Obama's support for free trade and Wall Street consistently

fails to win over corporate America. Big finance and the Chamber of Commerce

continue to work tirelessly to undermine his presidency, no matter what he

sacrifices in the way of working people's well-being.

 

It's not clear that the media or anyone else is picking up on the mundane

details of Obama's new talking points. But if they do, the president's push

for free trade agreements with South Korea, Panama and Colombia is unlikely

to be well received: the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition estimates that 57,000

Minnesotans are at risk of offshoring or displacement under a Korea deal.

 

"It's insane for our elected officials to even be considering a trade deal

right now that the International Trade Commission projects will increase

the overall trade deficit," writes Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition

director Jessica Lettween. "To claim such a job-killing proposal is a

'job creation plan' is downright irresponsible, particularly when we're

trying to get our economy back on its feet."

 

Wall Street and big business call the shots in both parties, so the bipartisan

embrace of free trade agreements should be no surprise. But with 2012 around the

corner, Obama's political advisers would be wise to consider whether these

free trade deals make political sense for him. After all, it is the Republican

party, which is historically even more business-friendly than the Democratic party,

that stands to benefit from them, if Obama loses support at the polls.

 

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