Since the founding of the Republic, America has had a strong isolationist strain. This sentiment survived two world wars and an economically destructive Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. It is with us today.
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You need go no further than the rhetoric in the current political campaign to find that isolationism lives. Candidates Jerry Brown and Patrick Buchanan have cynically tapped its mother lode by calling for more protection for U.S. industry.
The recession does not help. Many Americans genuinely fear for their jobs and their future. They are afraid of this imposing thing that the experts call the global economy. They see their jobs moving to Mexico, the Philippines or Malaysia.
And why not? They have seen how U.S. firms have gone multinational and taken many jobs offshore, many involving routine assembly and sewing. They have seen some industries disappear altogether, and others threatened by intensive foreign competition.
They cannot believe that America is, or will be, better off for expanding foreign trade. For example, a letter came in the mail the other day saying that if you work for an American firm, you should buy American goods.
Trade certainly gets a bad rap in this country. Except for ivory-tower economists, few venture forth to come to its defense. It loses in political debates where irrational, emotional argument often prevails.
Free-trade disciples shake their heads and blame this condition on an insular, provincial American public said to be ignorant of the more sophisticated points of economics. But I think there`s a deeper reason. Americans feel unprepared for the kind of global economy that now awaits them. It is not entirely their fault. It is the fault of business and of political and community leaders, too. For the U.S. to be a smashing success in foreign trade, so that it will enjoy a rising standard of living, the work force must be trained with higher skills.
For this to happen, education must be improved. But the U.S. education is hampered by an inherently corrupt bureaucratic structure that prevents students from emerging fully prepared for this new era.
Businesses also enjoy having a weakly trained, mobile, frightened work force that is grateful for a job, any job, without many fringe benefits. Turnover is a good thing. It keeps their costs down in this harsh new competitive climate.
Gary Hufbauer, an economics professor at Georgetown University, said the U.S. has the weakest vocational training system of any of the major industrial powers. Firms have a ”systematic bias not to train their employees,” he said.
This is incredibly shortsighted policy all around. Better trained, more involved workers can raise a firm`s productivity, he noted, and more than offset the higher labor costs. Yet, too many companies love the false economy of a low-skilled labor pool.
The Bush administration talks a good game of worker training, but is putting precious few resources into it even as it drags its feet on educational reform. Its whole approach to job displacement is to let the market take care of it, even as it vigorously pursues trade expansion.
The country`s leaders need to make a new contract with the people: We will do our utmost to train you if you will support free trade.
Provided our workers are competitive, the benefits of greater trade for the U.S. are undeniable. For example, the free trade agreement with Mexico will be a net plus for U.S. workers, Hufbauer said.
In a study for the Institute for International Economics, he said that the trade agreement will result in the net creation of 130,000 new American jobs over five years. Industries benefiting will be those that manufacture high-quality goods not available in Mexico.
But many assembly-line jobs in the U.S. will go south to Mexico. If a company involved in international trade can train someone to do a job in three weeks, said Hufbauer, the chances are high that it will be moved offshore.
So it`s no wonder that many Americans would retreat into an impoverishing, self-defeating isolationist shell. It`s their way of fighting an equally impoverishing, self-defeating attitude by business and government that leaves them out in the cold in the global economy.