From
Evan McMullin - American businesses export more than $2.2 trillion per year of goods
and services. The demand for American exports supported 11.5 million
jobs, an increase of more than 50 percent over the past 20 years. On
average, these jobs pay 18 percent more than jobs that are unrelated to
exports. For all these reasons, Evan believes that trade is an engine of
prosperity and that well-designed trade agreements can help our economy
grow even more.
At the same time, we can do more to help American workers adjust and
thrive in the 21st century. Since 2000, the U.S. economy has lost 5
million manufacturing jobs, although more than 12 million Americans
still work at factories. The main driver of this trend is advanced
technology, especially advances in robotics and computing. Today, U.S.
automakers produce just as many cars as they did 20 years ago, yet the
auto industry employs 300,000 fewer workers, a reduction of almost 25
percent.
Therefore, Evan believes that one of the most important ways to help
American workers is to make education more affordable while supporting
the growth of technical schools, online education, and work-based
training programs. It is essential to support these alternatives to the
typical full-time four-year degree program, which may not be a good fit
for older students who need to work and support their families while
studying. While U.S. factories have cut millions of jobs for those with a
high school education or less, hiring of college graduates remains
stable, while hiring of those with graduate degrees continues to
demonstrate strong growth.
Around the globe—even in China—manufacturing employment is shrinking
rapidly as factories rely more and more on advanced technology. Thus,
using tariffs to raise the cost of Chinese imports won’t bring those
jobs back to the United States. In fact, it will kill American jobs,
because China and others will block U.S. exports, which now support more
than 11 million jobs.
In addition, raising the cost of imports will force hard-pressed
American families to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars more each year
for basic necessities, from clothing to pots and pans and diapers. The
very same families who may be suffering because of lost manufacturing
jobs will now be pushed closer to poverty if Donald Trump pushes through
his agenda.
TPP and Other Trade Agreements
Evan supports the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a trade agreement
recently signed by 12 countries, including Japan, Australia, and
Vietnam. The TPP will eliminate tariffs for all the countries that sign,
but it will not go into effect until ratified by Congress, which must
vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ without making any changes to the agreement.
One of the biggest advantages of the TPP is that reducing tariffs to
zero favors American companies. Right now, America has low tariffs, not
far above zero. In contrast, other countries’ tariffs will plunge when
the TPP goes into effect, opening up their markets to U.S. exports. TPP
is still a good deal for those countries, because it gives them better
access to the biggest market in the world (ours) and the third biggest
(Japan).
TPP also helps create a level playing field between U.S. workers and
their counterparts overseas. If foreign companies lower their costs by
mistreating workers and polluting the environment, then its puts
American companies at an unfair disadvantage. However, TPP has the
strongest protections for labor and the environment of any major trade
deal. That is one of the reasons that Hillary Clinton described it as
the “gold standard” of trade agreements. Although nothing has changed
about the deal since Clinton praised it so highly, she has turned
against the deal for purely political reasons, again displaying a
characteristic lack of integrity.
Donald Trump opposes TPP, yet he has made millions by selling suits
made in Mexico and ties made in China. He is a candidate who puts his
bank account ahead of his principles, something he also did when used
illegal immigrants to build Trump Tower – and cheated them out of their
salaries. He is too wealthy and self-interested to have any concern
about how a trade war will destroy U.S. jobs or raise the cost of
living.
Finally, TPP is important for national security reasons. Our allies
in Asia are watching to see whether the U.S. still has the ability to
set the rules of the road, or whether their security depends on
submitting to China. That is why the secretary of defense has said, “TPP
is as important to me as another aircraft carrier.” If the U.S.
abandons TPP, China is likely to intensify its campaign of intimidation
in the South China Sea. Thus, support for TPP is a win-win proposition;
it enhances our security and reinforces the growth of job-creating
American export industries.
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