The Case for Responsible Nationalism

The excesses of globalization are real, but trade wars aren’t the answer.

More than two decades ago, Harvard economist Dani Rodrik warned that globalization was driving a wedge between workers who had the skills and mobility to prosper in the global economy and those who did not. The key challenge, he argued, was to make globalization “compatible with domestic social and political stability”—that is, to ensure that international economic integration “does not contribute to domestic social disintegration.”

.. International trade weakens the postwar social contract between American employers and their workers. Less-skilled workers often are forced to accept lower wages, inferior benefits and diminished job security. Leading economists acknowledged that increased trade with lower-wage countries would widen the gap between highly skilled and less-skilled workers in advanced economies, but they played down the magnitude of these effects.

Western policy makers embraced the Panglossian assumption that maximizing open markets and minimizing social policy would produce better living standards for all. The West assumed that its edge in innovation and productivity would enable it to dominate in the 21st century as in the decades after World War II.

..  China’s accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. Yes, China had a large state-owned sector, used public resources to encourage the private economy, and broadly subsidized its producers. But over time, the thinking went, the communists would see the folly of propping up inefficient producers. The state sector would shrink, and the market would become more powerful. China’s economy would converge with the Western model, and its political institutions eventually would evolve too.

Democratic and Republican administrations then presided over a flood of Chinese imports that gutted entire sectors of the U.S. economy. After a period of stability in the 1990s, U.S. manufacturing employment shrank by more than three million between 2001 and 2007—before the onset of the Great Recession, which destroyed another two million jobs. These developments hit rural and small-town areas with particular force, creating the geographically concentrated sense of abandonment and loss that helped propel Mr. Trump to the White House.

.. automation—not protectionism—is the key to the future.

.. the Trump administration should focus, as it belatedly has begun to do, on the forced transfer and sometimes outright theft of American intellectual property. If necessary, U.S. laws and regulations should prevent American corporations from yielding information about technologies that will shape the future in return for access to China’s market.

Surplus or Deficit? Trump Quarrels With Canada Over Trade Numbers

Canada’s view that the U.S. has a surplus undercuts Trump administration’s push on Nafta

The complexity of the statistics measuring U.S.-Canadian trade flows allows each side the ability to support its claim by choosing from an array of data.

Trump administration officials typically focus on merchandise trade balances with other countries, which don’t account for trade in services such as insurance or tourism.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s basic tally of merchandise trade with Canada lists U.S. exports at $282.4 billion and imports from Canada at $300 billion, indicating a deficit of $17.6 billion.

Canadian officials prefer to include services trade as well as merchandise. That method, which gives highly competitive American services industries credit, gives the U.S. a small surplus of $2.8 billion in 2017, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.

.. The U.S. is asking Canada for a litany of changes in the Nafta talks, from big shifts in auto-industry rules to the elimination of dispute-settlement system, and Canada officials are responding with an argument tailored to Mr. Trump: Trade between the two countries is balanced, so no major changes are needed to existing Nafta provisions.

.. President Trump raised eyebrows at a fundraiser when he reportedly told guests that he recently insisted to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that the U.S. has a trade deficit with Canada, despite having “no idea” if that was in fact the case.

“Trudeau came to see me…He said, no, no, we have no trade deficit with you, we have none,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday, according to a transcript published by the Washington Post. “I said wrong, Justin, you do. I didn’t even know. Gosh, I had no idea. I just said, ‘You’re wrong.’”

Trump considers media personality Larry Kudlow as top White House economic adviser

Media personality Larry Kudlow, a loquacious and energetic advocate of low taxes and free trade, has emerged as a leading candidate to replace Gary Cohn as director of the White House’s National Economic Council

.. Kudlow was an adviser to Trump during the 2016 campaign, working closely with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on the design of an initial tax plan. But Kudlow, in media appearances in the past month, has been critical of President Trump’s new plan to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports

.. Trump’s close relationship with Kudlow — and Kudlow’s experience speaking on television — have bolstered his candidacy for the job.

.. On March 3, Kudlow joined Steve Moore and Arthur Laffer in a column for CNBC.com that was sharply critical of Trump’s proposal to impose the new tariffs.

“Trump should also examine the historical record on tariffs, because they have almost never worked as intended and almost always deliver an unhappy ending,” they wrote.

.. It is unclear if Trump wants his next NEC director to advance an ambitious agenda or spend more time with the media defending the changes that have already taken place, such as tax cuts and efforts to roll back regulations.