July 23, 2016
The NYT, like much of the rest of the media, feel the need to argue that our trade policies could not possibly be hurting manufacturing workers. Its latest effort in this direction was a piece arguing that China could not possibly be “stealing” U.S. jobs because it is losing jobs itself to other countries.
The basic story is that China has seen a sharp rise in its wages (29 percent over the last three years, according to the article) so it is no longer the low cost producer for many items. The article points out that wages are now far lower in countries like India, Vietnam, and Bangladesh, and that many firms now operating in China are moving production to these countries. Some companies are even looking to reshore operations to the United States.
While the NYT obviously does not like Donald Trump, this argument is just silly on its face. Suppose the United States had a 20 percent tariff on imported textiles that was angering our trading partners. The NYT would then go to factories in North Carolina and elsewhere that were laying off workers, and then ridicule people who said that the tariffs were reducing textile imports.
That would obviously be absurd, but that is the logic of the NYT piece. The issue at hand is whether China’s policy of deliberately keeping down its currency against the dollar has increased its trade surplus with the United States and thereby cost the U.S. manufacturing jobs. The fact that China itself might now be losing jobs, does not in any way disprove the argument that its currency policy did and still does cost the U.S. jobs.
The NYT, like much of the rest of the media, pursues a policy of selective protectionism. It either ignores or supports protectionist measures that tend to benefit higher income people. For some reason, it never discusses the laws that require doctors to complete a residency program in the United States to practice in the United States, as though there were no other way for a person to be a competent doctor. Our protectionist measures for doctors costs the country roughly $100 billion a year in higher health care costs (@ $700 per year per household). There are comparable measures in place for other highly paid professions.
The U.S. also demand stronger and longer copyright patent protection as part of its trade agreements. Protectionism in prescription drugs alone costs the public more than $300 billion a year (@ $2,500 per family). For some reason the NYT doesn’t take note of this protectionism either.
It is only measures that would benefit less-educated workers that earn the wrath of the NYT and the rest of the media. Ironically, pushing a policy that would prevent currency management of the type pursued by China is actually a free trade policy. But the NYT apparently cares much more about who benefits from a policy that the logic behind it.
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