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'Trump Is a Fraud, Exhibit One Billion': Trade Deficit Soars to 12-Year High Despite President's Promises to Wipe It Out
"Trump pledged to eliminate the trade deficit and end job outsourcing, but the overall 2020 deficit is on track to be larger than when he took office, and his Labor Department has certified more than 300,000 American jobs were lost to outsourcing and imports during his presidency."
Sep 04, 2020
Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail in 2016 that, if elected president, he would bring about a rapid and unprecedented decline in the U.S. trade deficit.
But new figures released by the Commerce Department on Thursday--nearly four years after Trump's victory in the 2016 presidential election--show that the trade deficit soared to a 12-year high in July due in large part to a surge in imports, bringing the total negative trade balance in the first seven months of 2020 to $340 billion.
"The unexpectedly large growth in the trade deficit is especially notable given that trade flows have declined overall because of the global Covid-19 crisis."
--Lori Wallach, Public Citizen
"Trump pledged to eliminate the trade deficit and end job outsourcing, but the overall 2020 deficit is on track to be larger than when he took office, and his Labor Department has certified more than 300,000 American jobs were lost to outsourcing and imports during his presidency," Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, said in a statement.
Wallach noted that the 300,000 job-loss number is likely an underestimate given that it only "reflects the number of workers whose trade-related job losses were approved for Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) retraining and other benefits."
"The July 2020 deficit is the largest monthly deficit since July 2008, during the global financial crisis and related recession," said Wallach. "The unexpectedly large growth in the trade deficit is especially notable given that trade flows have declined overall because of the global Covid-19 crisis."
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden--who Trump has hit over his support for the job-killing North American Free Trade Agreement in the 1990s and now-dead Trans-Pacific Partnership under the Obama administration--highlighted the surging trade deficit on Twitter, writing that "American workers can't afford another four years of his failed leadership."
"In 2016, President Trump promised to reduce the trade deficit and said: 'You will see a drop like you've never seen before,'" Biden tweeted. "The reality? It's the highest it's been in 12 years."
Seth Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, echoed Biden, writing that the new deficit numbers reveal the worthlessness of Trump's lofty campaign-trail promises.
"Trump is a fraud, exhibit one billion," tweeted Hanlon.
As the Associated Press reported Thursday, the new Commerce Department statistics show that "despite a number of high-profile trade battles and a renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, America's trade deficits have remained stubbornly high" throughout Trump's presidency.
"For July, the deficit with China in goods totaled $31.6 billion, an 11.5% increase from the June imbalance," AP noted. "The goods deficit with Mexico hit a record high of $10.6 in July... The United States ran a deficit in goods trade of $80.1 billion in July, the highest on record."
The July trade deficit numbers come less than a month after a report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found that despite Trump's repeated vows to "bring back" U.S. manufacturing jobs, the president's first-term trade agenda and disastrous handling of the coronavirus pandemic have "wiped out much of the last decade's job gains in U.S. manufacturing."
"The Trump administration has taken credit for 'reshoring' manufacturing jobs, but the data show that isn't true," said Robert Scott, senior economist and director of trade and manufacturing research at EPI. "Nearly 1,800 factories have disappeared under Trump between 2016 and 2018."
"Additionally, the U.S. trade deficit in manufactured goods rose significantly between 2016 and 2019," Scott added. "In fact, the real U.S. trade deficit has increased in every year since 2016, reducing GDP growth by roughly 0.25% annually over the past three years. Compounded with the devastation left by the coronavirus pandemic, the blue collar manufacturing workers need serious help from policymakers."
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Citing Joe Biden's Troubling Voting Record, Bernie Sanders Warns 'My God... Trump Will Eat His Lunch'
The Vermont senator said defeating Trump in 2020 will require "ideas that are going to excite and energize millions of people who right now are not particularly active in politics, and who may not vote at all."
Dec 26, 2019
Warning that President Donald Trump cannot be defeated by an establishment Democrat running a "same old, same old type of campaign," Sen. Bernie Sanders said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times editorial board published Thursday that Trump would have a field day with former Vice President Joe Biden's record of support for the Iraq War, job-killing trade deals, and other destructive policies.
"If you're a Donald Trump and you got Biden having voted for the war in Iraq, Biden having voted for these terrible, in my view, trade agreements, Biden having voted for the bankruptcy bill. Trump will eat his lunch."
--Sen. Bernie Sanders
"Joe Biden is a personal friend of mine, so I'm not here to, you know, to attack him," Sanders said. "But my God, if you are, if you're a Donald Trump and you got Biden having voted for the war in Iraq, Biden having voted for these terrible, in my view, trade agreements, Biden having voted for the bankruptcy bill. Trump will eat his lunch."
The Los Angeles Times interview was not the first time Sanders has distinguished his own record from Biden's by highlighting the former vice president's support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. During a Democratic primary debate in September, Sanders noted that, unlike Biden, he "never believed what Cheney and Bush said about Iraq."
"I voted against the war in Iraq, and helped lead the opposition," the Vermont senator said.
Sanders told the Times that defeating Trump in 2020 will require a candidate who embraces "ideas that are going to excite and energize millions of people who right now are not particularly active in politics, and who may not vote at all"--and the Vermont senator argued he is the Democratic contender best positioned to deliver such a campaign.
"The reason I believe that I am the strongest candidate, and the reason I believe our approach is right is if you want a large voter turnout, if we understand that there are tens of millions of people in this country who don't vote, who've kind of given up on the political process... I think I am by far the strongest candidate to reach out to those people," Sanders said. "I think I'm the strongest candidate to bring together a multiracial coalition of African Americans, of Latinos, of Asians."
Though Trump polls as one of the most unpopular presidents in U.S. history, Sanders warned against underestimating him, as many did in the 2016 election.
"Anyone who underestimates Donald Trump as a candidate, for a variety of reasons, will be very mistaken," said Sanders. "He is going to be a very, very strong candidate. He certainly has a very strong base. He will have unlimited amounts of money to campaign on. He is a pathological liar. He will merge in an unprecedented way agencies of government with his campaign, because he doesn't particularly believe in the rule of law. So he is going to be a very, very tough opponent."
"The only way that you beat Trump," Sanders added, "is by having an unprecedented campaign, an unprecedentedly large voter turnout."
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Trump's Japan Deal Another Win for Global Meat Companies
The Trump administration is building quite a record of favoritism for these multinationals that now rivals its well-known allegiance to the fossil fuel industry.
Oct 01, 2019
If the world can be seen as a game of Risk, the global meat industry--with the help of the Trump administration--just got Japan. While the President touted last week's deal as aiding struggling U.S. farmers hurt by trade fights, the real winners are global players like the Chinese-owned Smithfield, Brazil-based JBS and Cargill, who have lobbied together for years to further pry open Japan's market for their beef and pork.
The real winners are global players like the Chinese-owned Smithfield, Brazil-based JBS and Cargill, who have lobbied together for years to further pry open Japan's market for their beef and pork.
The latest win for these big meat goliaths comes on the heels of the recently completed EU-Japan trade deal, and the completion of what was previously called the Trans Pacific Partnership (the 11-nation CPTPP) - an agreement that the Trump administration pulled out of. Both deals lowered Japanese tariffs on agriculture imports, aiding these companies' operations around the world. The latest deal with Japan will lock in many of the same wins for these global corporations' U.S.-based operations.
Earlier this year, U.S. and Japanese food and farm groups (including IATP) raised concerns that an agreement would only benefit global agribusiness. In a letter, the groups criticized a deal "that serves only to open our respective markets and strengthen corporate control over our rural economies. Market openings under previous trade agreements have contributed to the failure of independent family farms and increases in corporate concentration in agriculture, as well as environmental degradation and weakened standards for food safety."
Similar objections were raised during the fight over the original TPP. In 2016, more than 160 farm, food, rural and faith groups ripped the TPP for serving the interests of global trading firms over farmers. Part of the pushback against these deals is the continued growth in rural communities of controversial factory farms (operations with thousands, if not tens of thousands, of animals producing large amounts of manure) primarily to feed exporting agribusiness companies. These operations are facing rising opposition from rural residents, including independent family farmers themselves. Rural communities suffer from air and water pollution associated with factory farm manure lagoons, while independent producers are driven out of the market.
Also like the TPP and the proposed new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) agreement, the Japan agreement completely ignores climate change. This omission represents another win for global meat companies, who are coming under increasing fire for their role in rising greenhouse gas emissions. Research published last year by IATP and GRAIN found that the top five global meat and dairy companies combined were responsible for more GHGs than fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil, Shell and BP.
Instead, the limited U.S.-Japan deal covers agricultural products and a narrow set of industrial goods (like machine tools, bicycles and musical instruments). There is also a separate executive agreement on digital trade that appears to be lifted from the new NAFTA. Also referenced in public announcements by both countries is a verbal commitment from the Trump administration not to apply additional tariffs on Japanese auto parts entering the U.S. - at least in the immediate term.
Japan is the United States' third biggest agriculture export market according to the U.S. Trade Representative, and the country's biggest market for exported pork, beef and wheat. The deal lowers Japanese tariffs on those and a number of other U.S. agricultural exports to levels previously agreed to by Japan under the CPTPP.
Unlike the TPP, Japan's rice market was not included in the deal. And five House members have written to the USTR criticizing the dairy parts of the agreement, arguing that it provides less market access than enjoyed by dairy companies exporting to Japan from the CPTPP countries and the EU. The deal also opens up the U.S. market for more Japanese beef (a relatively small part of the U.S. market), while reducing 42 tariff lines for food and agriculture imports from Japan.
The Trump administration believes that because the agreement only involves tariff reductions in a small number of sectors, it does not require Congressional approval. The final text of the deal has still not been published. The secrecy of the negotiations with Japan, including the exclusion of Congress throughout, represents another step backward in efforts to make trade negotiations more transparent, inclusive and accountable. The USTR's behind-closed-doors approach works well for plugged in multinationals like Cargill, Tyson and others well represented on its trade advisory committees.
The agreement is contingent on approval of the Japanese parliament, expected this fall, and would go into effect on January 1. According to the USTR, phase two of the negotiations will begin in the spring of 2020, and include other elements of the CPTPP, such as dispute resolution, investor protections and rules on food safety, intellectual property and government procurement. That phase will likely take much longer to reach agreement and if agreed to, would require Congressional involvement and approval. It is unclear how much appetite Japan actually has for a phase two negotiation - with their primary goal, the prevention of new auto-related tariffs, already achieved in this initial agreement.
The trade win for global meat companies is just the latest favor the Trump administration has awarded the industry. From speeding up pork processing line speeds, to refusing to include mandatory Country of Origin Labeling for meat in the new NAFTA, to directly handing the companies tens of millions of dollars as part of its trade aid program--the Trump administration is building quite a record of favoritism for these multinationals that now rivals its well-known allegiance to the fossil fuel industry.
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