Rep. Louise M. SlaughterChairwoman, House Committee on Rules
Representing New York’s 28th District
 
PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
MEDIA CONTACT
Victoria Dillon (202) 225-2888
 
Slaughter Leads “Positive” Discussion with Trade Rep Kirk  

WASHINGTON- Reps. Louise M. Slaughter (D-NY) and Michael H. Michaud (D-ME) today led a meeting of  the House Trade Working Group’s meeting with United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk regarding continuation of U.S participation in talks for a Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement with Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, and Vietnam. 

The meeting focused on the House Trade Working Group’s key issues, which include labor and environmental standards, food safety and agricultural terms, procurement rules, democracy clauses, services deregulation, access to medicines, and foreign investor rights.
 

News Release
 
Contact: Michael Stumo, 413-854-2580, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Coalition for a Prosperous America
www.prosperousamerica.org
 
March 10, 2010
 
CPA Colorado Chapter Achieves State Resolution on Trade
 
The Colorado Chapter of the Coalition for a Prosperous America (CPA) helped persuade both Houses of the Colorado State Legislature to adopt a resolution supporting new trade policies to balance America's trade deficit.  The resolution called change in policies that have handicapped American manufacturing and agricultural producers and resulted in massive job losses and stagnant wages.
 
"We were stunned by the overwhelming support given by our Colorado political leadership for common sense policies to reduce the U.S. trade deficit," said Tom Neppl, CPA board member and President of Springs Fabrication, Inc. in Colorado Springs.  "America cannot recover from the Great Recession unless we balance our trade deficit so that we no longer consume more than we produce."

The resolution was adopted unanimously in the state Senate on March 4, 2010 one day after overwhelming passage in the state House of Representatives.  The local chapter of the National Federation of Independent Businesses was instrumental in assisting the process.

By Richard A. McCormack
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from Manufacturing and Technology News

March 5, 2010, Volume 17, Number 4

If you can't beat China and can't get the U.S. government to understand what you're up against, then you may as well join them.

That is what Evergreen Solar has decided to do, shifting production of solar fabrication and assembly from its factory in Devens, Mass., to Wuhan, China.

Evergreen Solar CEO Rick Feldt went to Washington, D.C., and met with Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. He told them Chinese government policies made U.S. production uncompetitive. But the Obama appointees do "not quite [have] the understanding that we think is necessary about what's actually happening in this industry," Feldt told financial analysts on Feb. 9. "The United States keeps talking about keeping jobs. You go to the President's State of the Union Address and he said, 'I want to keep jobs in the United States.' It's easy if you say it, but you've got to do something to do that."

What do folks mean when predicting a W-shaped (or double dip) recession?  They mean that our GDP goes down first, which we've already seen.  Then our GDP trends back up a bit (though jobs aren't).  Then our GDP contracts again (an aftershock recession), presumably before it goes up again (we hope).

China's exports, we learned today, jumped 45% last month in relation to Feb. 2009.  What does this have to do with the double dip recession?  It has everything to do with it.

We spent too much and produced too little, thereby producing a massive trade deficit.  We could not sustain it because we got poor, diving into the Great Recession (a GDP contraction).  Then GDP grows a bit (like now), led by government spending and a some inventory spending, among other things.  Then we start importing again instead of producing what we need here, widening the trade deficit and worsening the original sin. 

That is why CPA says that we must address the structural problems of trade and the economy.  We must produce more in relation to consumption.  Producing more stuff brings us wealth and jobs.  Consuming is fine, but not too much.  To do this, we need to fix the trade deficit at all costs. 

The trade deficit is not an ancillary statistic.  If your program fixes the trade deficit, it has fixed many other important components of our economy.  And we grow jobs and wealth. 

Obama's "doubling exports" program goal is a strange, probably unattainable goal.  We at CPA have not been entirely approving of this plan.  But is there a way to use that program to get real change? 

Taking the Pollyanna side for a moment... if you have (1) a tradition of "export and innovate" rhetoric (which is the wacko free trader mantra) that caused our trade deficits by talking exports but in reality facilitating excess imports; (2) you currently have an Administration that is internally conflicted on trade and resolves its conundrum through a "doubling of exports" program that does not deal with imports on its face; and (3) some of the biggest export barriers - currency and border adjustable taxes, among others - are also unfair import subsidies...

THEN,

You can have a chance to (1) build consensus to address those export barriers (which are import subsidies); and (2) create a national trade and economic plan to make progress in restructuring the economy.  Right now each little agency works on its own little piece of the puzzle without an overarching plan.

Yes.  Pollyanna-ish.  I'm not convinced.  But its a possible way to build consensus between the export-focused advocates and the trade balance advocates.