Are the Free Traders Ready for Free Trade?
The trade agreements that the United States has negotiated over the last three decades have been about getting low cost auto workers, steel workers, and textile workers. In addition, immigration policy has been designed to ensure that custodians, farmworkers, and dishwashers all work for low wages. These policies have been successful in pushing down wages for large segments of the work force, not only those who were directly displaced by trade or immigrant workers, but also those who face heightened competition from workers who were displaced by trade or immigration. But trade does not have to depress the wages of less-skilled workers. Trade agreements can also be structured to get us low cost doctors, lawyers, accountants, economists, reporters, and editorial writers. There are tens of millions of smart and energetic people in the developing world who could do these jobs better than most of the people who currently hold these positions in the United States. And they would be willing t
