While public sector unions have thrived because the public sector itself has grown, private sector unions have been annihilated by a bipartisan force: globalization. While much of our political debate over organized labor has focused on the effects of Right to Work and related laws, the evidence suggests that these types of reforms have minimal effect. Wisconsin, for instance, is a Right to Work state and Ohio is not, yet workers in Ohio have not fared obviously better (or worse) than those of Wisconsin.

That’s because on a national scale, the jobs that supported a good union wage have become less common or disappeared altogether. Economist David Autor has found that from 1999 to 2011, 2.5 million good manufacturing jobs were lost to import competition from China alone. We’ve also lost millions of jobs to other countries like Mexico. Combined, the effects of globalization have hollowed out America’s industrial core.

These policies have made our country far less self-sufficient economically. Just remember last year, when the Chinese Communist Party threatened America with a loss of critical pharmaceutical ingredients at the height of a global pandemic. But they’ve also destroyed millions of middle-class livelihoods. As Autor also found, when the manufacturing jobs moved out, a host of social problems moved in: family divorce and breakdown, child abuse and neglect and opioid addiction. Ohio suffered more than most states from the decline of manufacturing jobs.

Some blame the disappearance of these manufacturing jobs on unions themselves. And while there are undoubtedly examples of inflexible unions that made it harder for their companies to keep factories in America, many countries have far higher union participation rates but suffered much less of a decline in manufacturing employment.

Far more important than any individual union was the cheap labor overseas and the fact that our government did nothing to stop U.S. companies from exploiting it. Indeed, policymakers often encouraged offshoring through bad trade deals and tax policy.

As we now know, China gives companies who relocate their factories a massive advantage: cheap workers with no expectations and no rights. Some of our biggest corporations (like Apple) have benefited from literal slave labor in China.

That our biggest companies have taken their businesses to places like China is shameful, but our government policy shouldn’t depend on our biggest companies doing the right thing. In fact, during the Trump administration (where one of us served in the Cabinet), our country imposed tariffs on many goods coming into the United States from China. These policies had the effect of offsetting China’s unfair economic advantages and sending a clear signal to U.S. companies that the time has come to bring jobs home and reduce our dependence on China.

We should continue those policies and expand upon them. Instead, some in Congress and the Biden administration seem desperate to turn the clock back. Under influence from many American multinational companies, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and others want to reduce or eliminate tariffs that were part of a long overdue effort to combat China’s industrial warfare on the United States.

It would be regrettable if the Biden administration were to cave to this pressure and sell out the very workers it claims to champion. As we’ve learned the hard way over the last decades, there is no more important foundation for American workers than a strong manufacturing base.

Politicians will talk big about fighting China or standing up for the American worker. But unless they’re willing to impose real economic costs on the Chinese and stand up to the American CEOs who work with them, Labor Day will be little more than a reminder that we once lived in a country where the American worker was thriving.

Republican J.D. Vance of Cincinnati is a candidate for the U.S. Senate, and Robert Lighthizer is a former U.S. trade representative who has endorsed Vance’s candidacy.

To read the full opinion as it was published by the Akron Beacon Journal, click here.

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That [negotiating trade deals] seems a distant memory now for the world’s biggest trade bloc. Concerns about human rights in China and fears about deforestation in Latin America mean that the EU’s free trade agenda is running out of steam.

Doing trade deals is no longer just about keeping German carmakers and French farmers happy — which was often challenge enough. EU trade officials must now also please young climate marchers, union leaders and human rights activists — and that’s before they even start to haggle over tariffs and quotas with the negotiators across the table. The growing litany of public objections to trade means that the European Parliament and EU capitals are increasingly unwilling to sign off on deals that the Commission has struck.

What intrigues me most about this is that you could take out “EU” and insert “United States,” and it would still make perfect sense. Clearly, there has been a sea change in thinking about trade, perhaps not by the majority of people (U.S. polls continue to show strong support for trade), but certainly among the people that make the most noise.

This debate over trade is not new—the older folks reading this will remember Seattle in 1999—but the argument has evolved. In the early days, the focus was on what the activists were against—most trade agreements, which were deemed to be tools of big corporations that exploit the workers. Now it has turned a useful corner, and the trade skeptics, while still seeing a corporate conspiracy, are talking about what they are for rather than what they are against. This is a hopeful sign because it permits a more constructive conversation, although we have yet to have it.

The fact that these concerns are international is also not new. It was obvious during negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that the agreement was in more trouble in Europe than in the United States, as activists convinced European consumers that the deal would be a giant regulatory downgrade that would imperil their health and safety. (This concern is also not new. One of my favorite headlines from the 1980s appeared in a Canadian paper attacking the proposed U.S.-Canada free trade agreement: “Free Trade Called Threat to Day Care.” It’s on the wall in my office.)

Sadly, these ideas have not gotten better with age. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now. Overall, trade creates benefits. It leads to more jobs and more growth. Bodog Poker As every economist will tell you, however, trade agreements, while net positives, produce both winners and losers, and as politicians will tell you, the losers make the most noise. Historically, the answer was to design programs like trade adjustment assistance that compensated the losers. For a variety of reasons, those programs have not been as successful as we would like, and the debate has turned from compensation to prevention—let’s not have trade agreements that don’t do what we want.

The list of things we want has also grown longer, to include worker rights in other countries, avoidance of forced labor and other human rights concerns, climate change mitigation, opportunities for women, and more. These are all worthy objectives, consistent with administration goals and values the United States has long advocated. (The Scholl Chair has recently completed analysis on three of these issues—the role of women in trade, climate and trade, and forced labor in Xinjiang.)

Where I get off the boat is with the insistence that these are more important than other trade priorities, and we should oppose agreements that do not contain them. In that regard, I am admittedly old fashioned.  Trade agreements should be about trade. Their goal is to promote the exchange of goods and services to the benefit of all parties in the agreement. There are millions of Americans who have a stake in the global economy (whether they know it or not) because they grow things, make things, or provide services that are exported. Improving market access will enhance their prosperity and grow our economy.

The trade activists seem to have forgotten this, and the administration seems to be forgetting it as well. They will be reminded of it if they ever launch a trade negotiation, because I can guarantee the other party will bring it up because it has its eyes more clearly on the prize. That does not mean we should give up on these other important goals. They are fair game in negotiations, but we should be realistic about how much we can obtain and not forgo agreements that provide important market access because they don’t give us everything we want on other issues.

There is a disconnect here. Trade negotiations are incremental—get what you can and come back later and try again for more. Environmental, labor, and human rights activists are pursuing a moral agenda. They want the whole loaf because it is right and just and are willing to sacrifice the agreement if they don’t get what they want. The two groups speak different languages. Here at the Scholl Chair, we’re dedicated to bridging that divide. I hope the administration will attempt to do the same.

William Reinsch holds the Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. 

To read the full commentary from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, please click here.

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The share of total income accruing to the middle 60 percent of the U.S. population has steadily decreased from around 53 percent in 1969 to 45 percent in 2019. Middle-skills development, if done right, has the potential to increase upward economic mobility for millions of families.

We’ve been studying middle-skills workforce development in Louisiana and the Appalachian region for years, and one thing we’ve seen repeatedly is that government, educators, and private industry all have to collaborate to make programs successful. The 2014 Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act put stronger emphasis on building these ties between colleges and employers, but our research has found that this is still a work in progress.

Too often, it is industry that is not involved. In a study of the oil and natural gas industry—a technical field that would benefit highly from such partnerships—our colleagues at RAND found that only 8 percent of surveyed employers forecast their future job vacancies and communicated that to local colleges. Among the colleges surveyed, about half had no partnerships with employers to guide creation of relevant curricula or instruction.

Without this information, educators may be training for the labor market’s demands of the past. They may be overemphasizing technical skills, even as industry is asking for a combination of technical and general business skills (communication, problem solving, time management) from new hires.

It is critical that industry, educators, and government are all engaged—but any of those parties can effectively lead the effort. For instance, the City of New Orleans oversaw a set of training programs for adults (funded by the U.S. Department of Labor) that included both educational providers and industry partners. It led to higher earnings for participants and positive returns on investment for the government. It also improved markedly over a few years as city and training providers learned the best approaches for recruitment, applicant screening, and industry partnerships.

The Louisiana Department of Education led an effort in high schools to develop better graduation pathways, including to middle-skills jobs. Educators worked closely with the government under the Perkins Act (which provides funding for career, technical, and vocational education) and with local employers to identify the skills needed locally and build high-quality certification programs that gave students a marketable credential upon graduation. School officials there reported that the vocational program—called Jump Start—was most effective when local employers were actively engaged.

It was Chevron, with several private foundations, that led the Appalachia Partnership Initiative. It led to STEM teacher training and workforce development programs across a tristate region—Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania—around Greater Pittsburgh.

The United States is facing economic gaps wider than have been seen in a century. To keep the nation economically strong and able to provide middle-class lifestyles to its citizens, educators, government, and private industry need to work together to shape jobs training opportunities.

Matthew Baird is an economist at the RAND Corporation, co-director of the Center for Causal Inference, and a professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. His research focuses primarily on understanding labor markets and education policy to improve outcomes for disadvantaged populations. 

Shelly Culbertson, senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, focuses on forced displacement, disaster recovery, post-conflict stabilization, international development, and education. She has led ten studies about refugees and internally displaced persons, with particular focus on education, jobs, humanitarian assistance models, return conditions, and technology. Her refugee studies have been funded by the U.S. Department of State, the United Nations, the Qatar Fund for Development, and others. She is the lead of RAND’s Mass Migration Strategy Group.

To read the full commentary from the Research and Development Corporation (RAND), please click here.

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Richard L. Trumka, President AFL-CIO

Ambassador Katherine Tai, United States Trade Representative 

Transcript

Thank you President Trumka for that very kind introduction.  You have been a fearless champion for working people throughout your life, and I am grateful for your leadership.  

I also want to recognize AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Liz Shuler, another fierce advocate for workers, and the other union leaders and members of the AFL-CIO Executive Council who are here today in the room and via zoom.

Also, I want to thank the union members who have joined us as well.  This speech is for you.

The past 15 months have been hard for all of us, but especially hard for frontline workers.  Nearly 600,000 Americans have lost their lives to COVID-19, including union members who paid the ultimate price for showing up to work.  

Ending the pandemic is President Biden’s top priority, and thanks to his leadership, we are making progress.  The majority of American adults have received at least one shot, and we are pushing to get more Americans vaccinated as quickly as possible.  The pandemic isn’t over for any of us until it’s over for all of us.  

That’s why we will share 80 million vaccine doses with other countries by the end of this month and yesterday the United States announced it will purchase and donate 500 million Pfizer vaccine doses to help the rest of the world with its vaccination efforts.  And in May, we declared our support for a waiver of intellectual property protections under the TRIPS Agreement for COVID-19 vaccines.  

President Biden understands that our economy cannot fully recover until we defeat the virus, but there are signs of improvement.  We are on track for the fastest economic growth in 40 years, and in our first five months, the Biden-Harris Administration oversaw the creation of a record two million jobs – that’s more than any other Administration, ever.  Real wages are finally going up, the unemployment rate is coming down, and the number of initial weekly jobless claims has been cut in half.  

But there is more to do. 

Build Back Better starts by growing the economy from the bottom up and the middle out and putting workers at the center of our economic plans.  

Workers and worker power are fundamental to those ideas, and that’s why the Protecting the Right to Organize Act – the PRO Act – needs to become law.  We can’t rebuild an economy that works for everyone without empowering workers and giving them a voice to secure the better wages, benefits, and working conditions they deserve.

This is particularly true for workers of color, who have the dual burden of fighting for workers’ rights and for racial justice.  They need the support of organized labor, and the Senate needs to send that bill to the President’s desk so he can sign it into law.  

We also need to enact President Biden’s American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan to invest in our future.

The President has been clear that trade policy will play a critical role in carrying out his vision for an economy where, as he puts it, “everyone is cut in on the deal.”  And that is why I’m here today: to talk about your important role in the Biden-Harris Administration’s pursuit of a worker-centered trade policy.

We know that trade is essential to a functioning global economy.  It is clear, however, that the past promises made to workers on trade were not met.  Certain sectors of the economy have done well.  But far too many communities and workers were left behind.  The consequences for families when factories closed and jobs were sent overseas were real.  And they were real for the workers who lost their jobs to unfairly traded imports, too.  This created a trust gap with the public about free trade.  

This wasn’t because of trade agreements alone.  Recent tax policy favored corporations over workers.  Tax cuts for the wealthiest individuals and corporations never trickled down.  President Biden knows this, which is why he wants them to pay their fair share.

In the United States, real wages have stagnated for decades, and the wealth gap – particularly between Black and white workers – has widened significantly.  CEOs now make on average 320 times more than their employees.  And the percent of workers in unions – a good indicator of higher wages and job stability – is half of what it was 40 years ago. 

This inequality isn’t fair or sustainable.  It didn’t happen overnight.  It is the result of a long pursuit of tax, trade, labor, and other policies that encouraged a race to the bottom.   

President Biden is leading us on a new path.  He wants an economic policy, including a trade policy, that delivers shared prosperity for all Americans, not just profits for corporations.

We want to make trade a force for good that encourages a race to the top.  

The first step to achieving this goal is creating a more inclusive process.  In order to understand how trade affects workers, we want to come meet with, listen to, and learn from them.  

By bringing workers from all backgrounds and experiences to the table, we will create inclusive trade policy that advances economic security and racial and gender equity.  We want to lift up women, communities of color, and rural America – people that have been systematically excluded or overlooked.  

Last week I joined Senator Sherrod Brown and some of his constituents in Ohio for a virtual roundtable.  We talked about their priorities and the changes we can make to trade policy that will help their businesses and towns.  I hope to have many more conversations like this in the weeks and months to come.  

Our goal is to improve worker representation in trade policy in the United States and in multilateral organizations.  The WTO, for example, doesn’t adequately hear from workers, and we want to change that.  We’ll keep asking for this in other international organizations, such as APEC and the OECD, too.

We know that when workers have a seat at the table in their workplace, wages go up, retirement benefits go up, workplaces are safer, and discrimination and harassment get addressed.  We want trade to deliver the same results.  

The USMCA agreement is a good example of what can happen when labor is at the table.  It’s not perfect, but because we collaborated closely with President Trumka and many of the union leaders here today, we negotiated a better deal for American workers.  

Because of our partnership, the USMCA now includes:
–    The strongest labor and environmental standards in any agreement ever;
–    A new rapid response mechanism that allows us to quickly take action at a specific factory where workers are being denied their rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining; and
–    Critical changes to the intellectual property provisions designed to increase access to affordable medicine for regular people.

Unlike previous trade agreements, USMCA passed with overwhelming, bipartisan support.  It is proof that consulting – really listening and working with workers, the labor movement, and a broad range of stakeholders – leads to more pro-worker, more meaningful, and more popular policy.  

Less than a year after USMCA went into effect, we’re already using its labor enforcement tools. Last month, we asked Mexico to investigate whether workers at a GM facility in Silao were denied their rights during a contract ratification.   

This was the first time that the new rapid response bodog sportsbook review tool was used by the U.S. government.  It was also the first time in history that the United States proactively initiated labor enforcement in a trade agreement.  

The AFL-CIO recently filed a Rapid Response petition alleging workers’ rights had been violated at an auto parts manufacturer.  Yesterday, we asked Mexico to review the allegations – the second time we’ve taken this step in the last month.

Under previous agreements, labor petitions could – and did – languish for years without a response from the Administration.  But we have acted quickly.  

These enforcement actions matter.  The Rapid Response Mechanism will help to protect the rights of workers, particularly those in low-wage industries who are vulnerable to exploitation.  Because when we fight for workers overseas, we are fighting for workers here at home.

And we’ll do that across the board.  Enforcing all of our trade rules is a priority for the Biden-Harris Administration.  Those who work hard and play by the rules, you deserve to have the government on your side when faced with illegal and unfair trade practices. 

We must apply the same principles at the WTO.  Despite a preamble that says “trade…should be done with a commitment to raising living standards and ensuring full employment,” the WTO’s rules actually don’t include any labor standards, and workers are often an afterthought.  This needs to change.

The United States recently submitted a proposal to ensure that fighting forced labor is included in any agreement the WTO reaches to prohibit harmful fisheries subsidies.  We know that forced labor is a serious problem in the fisheries sector, particularly on distant water fishing vessels.  I hope WTO Members will commit to a high-standards, meaningful agreement that includes our common-sense provision and that will contribute to tackling this problem.  

This is not just an economic issue.  This is a moral imperative, and I ask all of you to help us to build support for our effort.  The WTO must show in these negotiations that it can improve the lives of regular people and that it is capable of responding to crises and tackling difficult matters, particularly when it comes to worker abuse.

If the WTO is to be relevant and a force for good, it must be revitalized and modernized.  We must take bold steps to fix its negotiating function, commit to greater transparency, and reform the dispute settlement process.  

Under the Biden-Harris Administration, we will bring dignity of work – and the empowerment of workers – to the WTO.  

I am excited to work with Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the new Director General.  With her leadership, and if WTO Members choose to meet this moment, the commitments of that preamble may finally come true.

Whether we’re negotiating issues at the WTO, or in other settings, we will be more successful if we partner with our allies.

The President promised that he would focus on rebuilding the American economy and the American middle class before he enters into any new trade deals, and that’s exactly what he is doing.  But he also knows that the world won’t wait.  

That’s why we will also reengage with our friends, trading partners, and multilateral institutions to promote democracy, labor rights, and economic security.  We know in the past other goals – including important national security and foreign policy concerns – have sometimes drowned out workers’ voices in trade discussions and weakened our focus on serving American workers’ best interests.   

This time we’re putting foreign policy and trade to work for the middle class.  That means working with allies on a shared agenda that will lift up workers, increase economic security, and strengthen democracy around the world.

And we’re already seeing results.  We are close to an agreement on a global minimum tax, thanks to recent progress with G7 and G20 partners.  And just last month, the G7 Trade Ministers made a historic commitment to work together to protect individuals from forced labor, including mitigating the risks of forced labor in global supply chains.

We’re also working with allies to make our supply chains less vulnerable and more resilient.  We need to diversify our international suppliers and reduce geographic concentration risk.  For too long, the United States has taken certain features of global markets as inevitable – especially the fear that companies and capital will flee to wherever wages, taxes and regulations are lowest.  The pandemic laid bare the challenge of this approach.  And we need to fix it.  

And crucially, by working with allied democracies on trade enforcement, we will more effectively respond to the policies of autocratic, non-market economies that hurt our ability to compete.  We will increase our leverage so that we can achieve more for American workers.  That’s why I am leading a Trade Task Force as part of the President’s Supply Chain Resilience effort: to propose unilateral and multilateral enforcement actions against unfair foreign trade practices that have eroded critical supply chains.

Next week, I will join the President on his trip to Brussels and meet with my European counterparts.  We’ll participate in intense negotiations to resolve the 16-year old Boeing/Airbus disputes and to find a path forward on products like steel and aluminum.  These talks will give us a chance, first and foremost, to champion the rights and interests of our workers in those industries, while also creating new standards to combat the harmful industrial policies of China and other countries that undermine our ability to compete.

From my conversations so far, I am optimistic that we will be successful.

Finally, a worker-centered trade policy means addressing the damage that U.S. workers and industries have sustained from competing with trading partners that do not allow workers to exercise their internationally recognized labor rights.  

This includes standing up against worker abuse and promoting and supporting those rights that move us toward dignified work and shared prosperity: the right to organize and to collectively bargain.  USTR will utilize the full range of trade tools and work with our allies to protect labor rights, including the elimination of forced labor and the worst forms of child labor, especially forced child labor.  We must also achieve greater accountability from those in the business community that profit from this exploitation. 

We will be more effective if our trading partners also commit to promoting, protecting, and enforcing internationally recognized workers’ rights as part of their trade policies.  And we will lead the way on this issue as a core American value.

Together with our allies, we must create high-standard trade agreements that empower workers and prevent other countries from violating labor rights to gain an unfair advantage in the global market.  And we must aggressively enforce them.  

We know we can’t do this work alone.  In addition to bringing workers to the table and partnering with our allies, we need to consult closely with the business community.  

American companies have the know-how and expertise that we will need to identify market access opportunities, respond to unfair trade practices, and build strategic and resilient supply chains, all at the same time.

We want to partner with U.S. companies to send products stamped with Made in America to all corners of the world and to invest in American workers and communities.  This is part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s pledge to Build Back Better.

A worker-centered trade policy seeks to expand opportunities for businesses by expanding economic security for workers here at home.  I hope American companies of all sizes will join us in this effort.  We need their ideas, bodog online casino experience, energy, and partnership. 

At the beginning, I said this speech was for the workers who took the time out of their busy day to listen in.  

You are the sweat, the muscle, and the brains behind American ingenuity, perseverance, and competitiveness.  You are the backbone of our economy and our democracy.  You are the guiding light of trade policy for the Biden-Harris Administration.

When I go to Europe next week, it will be to encourage other allied democracies to pursue a worker-centered trade policy, too.

To work with us to set a high standard alternative to state-directed economies that do not promote the rights of workers and to combat forced labor, the worst illustration of the race to the bottom.

I’ll be asking them to join me in making global trade policy a force for good that raises wages and increases economic security.   

The more we invest in our workers at home and abroad, the stronger democracy will be worldwide.  And by partnering with our allied democracies, we will more effectively respond to the threats of autocratic, non-market countries whose policies undercut our workers.  

We’ve shown in our first few months – through USMCA enforcement, our WTO forced labor proposal, and many other actions – that we can craft a worker-centered trade policy if we partner with you.

It is still early days, and we have far more to do.  But I have confidence that we will build off of these early efforts.  By working together, we will achieve a trade policy that prioritizes the dignity of work and workers, that promotes shared prosperity and racially inclusive, equitable economic growth here at home and abroad.  

Thank you.  

Richard L. Trumka is president of the 12.5-million-member AFL-CIO. An outspoken advocate for social and economic justice, Trumka is the nation’s clearest voice on the critical need to ensure that all workers have a good job and the power to determine their wages and working conditions. He heads the labor movement’s efforts to create an economy based on broadly shared prosperity and to hold elected officials and employers accountable to working families.

Ambassador Katherine Tai was sworn in as the 19th United States Trade Representative on March 18, 2021. As a member of the President’s Cabinet, Ambassador Tai is the principal trade advisor, negotiator, and spokesperson on U.S. trade policy.

Prior to her unanimous Senate confirmation, Ambassador Tai spent most of her career in public service focusing on international economic diplomacy, monitoring, and enforcement. She previously served as Chief Trade Counsel and Trade Subcommittee Staff Director for the House Ways and Means Committee in the United States Congress. In this capacity, Ambassador Tai played a pivotal role in shaping U.S. trade law, negotiations strategies, and bilateral and multilateral agreements, including the recently re-negotiated United-States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Ambassador Tai is an experienced World Trade Organization (WTO) litigator. She previously developed and tried cases for the Office of the United States Trade Representative, eventually becoming the Chief Counsel for China Trade Enforcement. Before transitioning to federal service, she practiced law in the private sector, clerked for district judges, and taught English in Guangzhou, China.

Ambassador Tai earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from Yale University and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. She is fluent in Mandarin.

To watch the full town hall from the AFL-CIO, please click here.

To read the full remarks from USTR Ambassador Tai, please click here.

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Thus, the United States is an active participant in the ongoing negotiations following the Joint Statement on Electronic Commerce (WT/MIN(17)/60, 13 December 2017), but is not a party to the other Joint Statement Initiatives. See Joint Ministerial Statement on Services Domestic Regulation (WT/MIN(17)/61, 13 December 2017); Joint Ministerial Statement on Investment Facilitation for Development (WT/MIN(17)/59, 13 December 2017); Joint Ministerial Statement, Declaration on the Establishment of a WTO Informal Work Programme for MSMEs (WT/MIN(17)/58, 13 December 2017); Joint Declaration on Trade and Women’s Economic Empowerment on the Occasion of the WTO Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires in December 2017.

While India and South Africa have challenged the legitimacy of the Joint Statement Initiatives (JSIs), a great deal of the energy in the WTO in the last several years has been put into the JSIs. See, e.g., February 20, 2021, Will India and South Africa (and others) prevent future relevance of the WTO?, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2021/02/20/will-india-and-south-africa-and-others-prevent-future-relevance-of-the-wto/; WTO, Coordinators of joint initiatives cite substantial progress in discussions, 18 December 2020, https://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news20_e/jsec_18dec20_e.htm. The WTO press release is copied below.

“The coordinators of the joint initiatives on e-commerce, investment facilitation, services domestic regulation and micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) said on 18 December that substantial progress has been achieved in their respective discussions and that they are on track to deliver concrete results or additional progress at the WTO’s 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) scheduled for next year.

“In their communication, the coordinators noted that they have delivered summary statements to WTO members outlining how far the four initiatives have advanced since they were launched three years ago, where they stand today, and what their next steps in the discussions will be.

“’What these statements clearly show is the substantial progress [of the initiatives] in a short period of time, that they are on track to delivering concrete results or progress at MC12, and that they are contributing to building a more responsive, relevant and modern WTO — which will be critical to restoring global trade and economic growth in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis.’

“’These initiatives have grown into an increasingly important part of the agenda of the WTO, with an expanding number of participants from both the developed and developing worlds that account for a significant part of the WTO’s membership, and based on the principles of openness, transparency and inclusiveness,’ the coordinators added.

“The new joint initiatives were launched at the WTO’s 11th Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires in December 2017 with the aim of commencing negotiations or discussions on issues of increasing relevance to the world trading system.

“The joint initiative coordinators are Ambassador José Luis Cancela Gómez (Uruguay) for the Informal Working Group on MSMEs; Ambassadors George Mina (Australia), Yamazaki Kazuyuki (Japan) and Tan Hung Seng (Singapore) for the Joint Statement Initiative on E-Commerce; Deputy Permanent Representative Jaime Coghi Arias (Costa Rica) for the Joint Statement Initiative on Services Domestic Regulation; and Ambassador-designate Mathias Francke (Chile) for the Structured Discussions on Investment Facilitation for Development.

“The coordinators noted that the consolidated negotiating text on e-commerce will provide a foundation for intensified negotiations in 2021. They highlighted Bodog Poker that the negotiations on services domestic regulation are at a ‘mature stage’, with a genuine potential for an outcome by MC12.

“The coordinators also said that substantive provisions of an investment facilitation agreement are being negotiated by the participating members in this initiative. In addition, they noted the recent announcement by the Informal Working Group on MSMEs of a package of declarations and recommendations to help small business trade internationally.

“The coordinators underscored that the shared and ultimate goal of these initiatives is to strengthen and reinforce the multilateral trading system, that they are open to all WTO members, and that they seek the participation of as many members as possible.

“The coordinators stated: ‘The initiatives on e-commerce, investment facilitation, services domestic regulation, and MSMEs clearly demonstrate that the WTO can respond to new economic and technological challenges in a flexible, pragmatic, and timely way. These initiatives — and their innovative approach to cooperation and negotiation — can provide a valuable illustration of WTO reform in action.’”

While the Joint Declaration Trade and Women’s Economic Empowerment on the Occasion of the WTO Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires in December 2017 is not treated as a JSI, it does have many Members supporting the Declaration and engaging in the informal work programme.

Some of the other countries participating in all of the JSIs and Joint Declaration

While the number of WTO Members participating in the JSIs and supporting the Joint Declaration vary, the following is a partial list of Members who are signatories to all of the JSIs and the Joint Declaration. Other than the Electronic Commerce initiative, the U.S. is presently not a signatory or participant in any of the other JSIs or Joint Declaration.

Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, European Union, Japan, Korea, Mexico, New Zealand, Russian Federation, Switzerland are participants in all of the JSIs and supportive of the Joint Declaration. Dozens of other Members are participating in some or many of the JSI’s that the U.S. is not presently supporting or active in.

Conclusion

While the United States has a large agenda of issues it wishes to address at the WTO (including trade and the environment, WTO reform, industrial subsidies), it makes no sense that the United States would not actively participate in work programs where most of the major economies are active and where new rules will be relevant to areas of significance for the United States as well as for trading partners. While the work program on women and trade is in an informal working group, President Biden has made empowerment of women an important priority for his Administration as a range of actions during International Women’s Day made clear. See, e.g., March 8, 2011, March 8, 2021, International Women’s Day — statements of UN Women Executive Director,  heads of WTO, UNCTAD and International Trade Centre, and U.S. Executive Orders and Statement by President Biden, https://currentthoughtsontrade.com/2021/03/08/march-8-2021-international-womens-day-statements-of-un-women-executive-director-heads-of-wto-unctad-and-international-trade-centre-and-u-s-executive-orders-and-statement-by-president-biden/. Similarly, MSMEs are an important part of the U.S. economy and a major driver of economic growth. The U.S. has a very strong services sector which has an interest in domestic regulatory issues both in the U.S. and as addressed overseas. Finally, the U.S. is both a major investor in foreign countries and a recipient of large amounts of foreign investment and has a significant interest in helping the global community address issues involved in investment in developing and least developed countries on a more predictable basis.

Hopefully, the Biden Administration when its USTR nominee is confirmed in the coming days, will opt to engage in all of the JSIs. It is time.

Terence Stewart, former Managing Partner, Law Offices of Stewart and Stewart, and author of the blog, bodog poker review|Most Popular_Congressional

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Since 1994, when NAFTA took effect and one year before the WTO was created, average world tariffs have fallen by nearly 70 percent.^[3] 

However, from 1994 to 2019 the United States also added 36.8 million new jobs. More than half of these new jobs were filled by Black and Hispanic workers, including nearly 18 million net new jobs for Hispanic Americans and 7.2 million net new jobs for Black workers.^[4] 

From 1994 to 2019, average real hourly earnings for Hispanic workers increased by 25.2 percent as average real hourly earnings for Black workers increased by 17.5 percent. The earnings gap between these two minority groups and White workers was smaller in 2019 than it was in 1994.

In contrast to suggestions that U.S. manufacturing has declined due to imports and outsourcing, real manufacturing output actually increased by 55 percent from 1997 to 2019.^[6] Before the pandemic, U.S. manufacturing layoffs had been declining ever since 2001, the first year for which layoff statistics are available.^[7] 

Manufacturing job losses were overwhelmingly driven by technology, the opportunity for workers to move up to better jobs, and increases in the productivity of manufacturing workers, not by trade.^[8] For example, the average manufacturing worker’s productivity doubled from 1990 to 2019, meaning fewer workers could produce more goods.

Even so, the trend toward lower manufacturing employment reversed course in 2010. From 2010 to 2019 the United States added nearly 1.4 million new manufacturing jobs.^[10] 

In addition to helping create millions of new, higher-paying jobs during the NAFTA/WTO era, international trade has reduced the cost of living for American workers and their families. For example, clothing is more affordable now than it was in 1994, after adjusting for inflation and quality factors, a change that benefits nearly all Americans.^[11] The same goes for telephones, TVs, toys, and many other goods.

U.S. import taxes are regressive, meaning they disproportionately damage people with low incomes. A 2017 analysis by three former Obama administration economists, including the former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, concluded: “Tariffs – taxes on imported goods – likely impose a heavier burden on lower-income households, as these households generally spend more on traded goods as a share of expenditure/income and because of the higher level of tariffs placed on some key consumer goods.”^[12] Therefore reducing import tariffs is a progressive tax cut, with more benefits flowing to workers who earn less.

The record is clear: Trade has helped Black and Hispanic workers, who, not coincidentally, Bodog Poker enthusiastically support trade. According to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey, large majorities of Black and Hispanic Americans think free trade agreements have been a good thing for the United States. Both groups were more likely to say that their financial situation has been helped by free trade agreements than hurt by them.^[13] 

The incoming Biden administration should strive to build on the benefits Americans have enjoyed as a result of declining global trade barriers. Specifically, the United States should do more to help Americans of all backgrounds by reducing import taxes on shoes, clothing, and other products that families need, while also cutting tariffs on imported inputs used by manufacturing workers to compete in the global marketplace.

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