Steve Ivester on Trade Policy

My first concern is on trade policy and our national balance of trade.  This can be simply restated as JOBS.  The United States has one of the largest and most desirable markets in the world.  This gives our government the power to negotiate trade deals that should guarantee our workers have a world market for “value added” goods.  “Fair Trade,” instead of “Free Trade.”

At this time, Washington seems to serve big multi-national businesses more than it serves its own citizens.  A pure “service economy” is the road to national economic disaster as our citizens buy more and more foreign goods, and we do not make and sell enough to maintain our trade balance.

Construction jobs, so promoted by the present administration, provide only temporary employment.  They are, in fact, “service jobs,” in that the product is not sold to other nations.  Even in the “new economy,” if all of our jobs are service jobs, and we keep buying from others, eventually they will own everything of value in our country, and we will have only worn-out trinkets.

We need good, skilled, high-paying manufacturing jobs where our labor adds significant value to the underlying raw materials.  Just shipping trees and soy beans to China is not a long-term win for us.

We must retain a strong manufacturing sector.  The strategic military implications of a strong industrial base are another aspect of this concern.  It is also folly to think that we will continue to retain the research and development efforts, as well as sales and marketing jobs, when the manufacturing is done off-shore.  We have the middle class market that everyone wants to sell to.  This “market power” gives us the ability to negotiate trade deals in a way that protects our workers.

There is one more issue that must be addressed here--it is an adjunct to all the products and services that big multinational business is now outsourcing.  During the last few months, we have all been made aware of the rash of shoddy, unhealthy/unsafe outsourced products that have entered the US market.  Big business has abrogated its quality control function, and Washington has done nothing to protect the US consumer.  This is not fair to our industries that continue to manufacture products here in the US with our high consumer protection, environmental protection, and other standards with US labor.  If they were to put such products with the same defects and deadly ingredients that China has shipped into our marketplace, they would be shut down and blown away under a litigious cloud.

• I have the EDUCATION and EXPERTISE and am willing to FIGHT to preserve and re-establish our industrial economy with particular emphasis on encouraging local, technical, entrepreneurial businesses that pay above average wages.

Learn more about issues that concern me: