Foreign Trade In 90s
The advances of the technological revolution
have molded the evolution of the
United States’ foreign trade in the 1990’s
and into the new millennium.
Globalization has become the credo for the
Clinton administration, and the
booming American economy has done nothing but
strongly bolster this approach.
Globalization’s foothold in American
policy really began in the much-debated
North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA), which was finally passed in 1994.
NAFTA specifically
said one of its goals was to "contribute to the harmonious
development and
expansion of world trade and provide a catalyst to broader
international
cooperation". However at the time that was hardly the case. But
harmonious
was the last word used to describe the conflict that followed, with
labor
unions fiercely opposed to losing American jobs to a borderless
North
American economy and right wing Republicans equally opposed to
the
anti-isolationism this bill offered. The Democratic Clinton
administration had
to buck its own Democratic stronghold in Labor, to support
this agreement.
However, it would be one of the chief foreign trade
accomplishments of the last
decade. It’s undoubtedly boosted the economy.
Allowing expansion of trade, and
decrease of trading and labor costs have
made production invariably more
profitable. Following the arguable success of
the NAFTA the Clinton
administration has continued an increase globalization
of trade. Somewhat post
facto adopting globalization as the chief tool for
expanding Democratic ideals
and American values worldwide, normalized trade
relations have been sought
throughout Asia and Africa as well. China
specifically has been a focus of the
administration’s efforts. Blatantly
ignoring pernicious Chinese human rights
abuses in both Tibet and at home, as
well as legitimate threats to national
security, when American companies were
permitted to sell advanced missile and
satellite technology to China, the
last decade has grown to become expansion of
trade with China at all costs.
Yearly Congress debates offering China Most
Favored Nation trading
status. And yearly Congress, with the strong support from
Clinton, has
passed it. In very recent years, the Clinton administration has
attempted to
include China into the World Trade Organization. The World
Trade
Organization is a recently created body, which serves as an
economic parallel to
NATO. It is the prime example of the multinational
efforts to globalize trade by
forming mutualistic alliances that make it
easier for members to trade between
themselves. The hope is, that eventually,
all nations who meet minimum standards
will be able to join the W.T.O., and
at that time we truly will have a
globalized economy. A recently passed bill
also extended the global trading hand
to Africa. We now allow African nations
to trade with us without tariffs, in the
hope that increased trade will boost
Africa out of its desperate poverty. Africa
has long been the last frontier
in the globalized trade quest. So to give
Africa, a continent rife with
war, famine, AIDs, corruption and poverty a door
into the global economy was
truly a milestone. Obviously, working standards and
conditions in Africa
cannot keep pace with more developed nations, however
giving them the
opportunity to compete in the same field as Western nations
gives them the
decided advantage that this continent so desperately needs. Of
course
globalization has had its detractors. Chief of which concern human
&
labor rights and environmental abuses in the countries in which America
has
expanded its trade. Many complain that giving access to products made by
abused
workers or by companies that pollute the environment only propagate
these
terrible international problems. For instance NAFTA specifically stated
that
expanding free trade throughout North America was only applicable to
companies
that met acceptable working standards. However, defining
"acceptable" is
tougher job then just writing it in some legislation.
Presently, one American
employee for a steering-wheel plant makes
approximately $10.46 per hour,
compared to his Mexican counterpart, who makes
about $0.75 per hour. Working
conditions, health and safety standards are
also drastically below American
standards. And, as labor unions portended
approximately 400,000 manufacturing
jobs have been lost in the United States,
and have been subsequently gained in
Mexico. So far, companies like
Thompson Consumer Electronics, Jay Garment, Magne
Tek, Uniroyal, Goodrich
and Breed Technologies have moved at least 107 plants in
Indiana alone to
Mexican plants. So if we know that labor and environmental
rights are being
abused in Mexico, is it still in our best interest to expand
trade to them?
The questions surrounding MFN for China or inclusion into the
W.T.O. are
even more confusing. Because in Mexico, where the results are
quite
debatable, and while standards might be below our par, we may be able
to admit
the whole world does not need to operate on our par. However, in
China, such
questions do not exist. China maliciously curbing religion and
political
freedom, as seen by the violent suppression of the Falon Gong in
the interior,
and the massive abuse and systematic elimination of Tibetan
Buddhists. China is
the world’s largest polluter (although, to be fair, they
are also the most
populous nation), and have virtually no enforced
environmental standards on the
products they produce. Working conditions are
known to be criminally unfair and
unsafe for workers. Nevertheless, China is
still our most sought after trading
partner. Those with a stronger conscience
find it hard giving China advantages
in trading when its abuses are so
rampant and obvious. When one notices that the
United States has
full-fledged embargoes in place on Cuba and North Korea, two
other communist
countries, for lesser human rights violations, the hypocrisy
becomes rather
evident. When Bill Clinton took office he too said that expanding
trade would
be conditional. That our trading hand would only be extended to
those that
met certain minimal expectations. However, he quickly abandoned those
pledges
upon taking office, in favor of the philosophy that increased trading
with
lesser-standard nations can only serve to increase standard of living
ratings
in those countries. It is a trickle-down notion and something somewhat
hard
to swallow from a Democratic president. In the end it is a balance of
power
between the concerns of the masses and might of the roaring economy
that will
hopefully win out. However, avariciousness is an all too common
human failing,
and we as a species will be hard-pressed to take both what is
good and what is
right into consideration when trekking into the future.