Dear Rachel McAdams: Letter Forty Four

Wednesday April 22, 2009

Dear Rachel,

Lately, I have been covering the topic of international trade in my class. This is a pretty interesting topic, and today is only day two of three whole days I'm spending on it. How do you feel about free trade/globalization? Most people seem to come up with reasons not to like it, and I guess there are plenty. A lot of Americans are concerned about losing jobs; others are worried about sweatshops and health regulations in poor countries and things like that. I think these concerns make for pretty strange bedfellows; people who don't pretend to care about anyone but Americans and their jobs, and people who profess to be concerned about people in developing countries, both fighting for the same things.

I don't want to speak for you, in fact I'd really like it if you would reply, but you probably won't so I'm going to engage in some unfounded speculation about what your views about trade/globalization might be. I would put you in the "caring about people in developing countries" camp, but also in the "caring about the environment"camp. You probably think the US should sign the Kyoto Protocol and take a leadership role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and I couldn't agree with you more. But this might also make you opposed to the idea of us importing a lot from countries without strict pollution standards, or allowing US companies to locate overseas in these countries.

I think that we should import from these countries. Contrary to what a lot of people seem to think, the US can ensure that production abroad happens relatively cleanly. In previous rounds of GATT and WTO negotiations, the US has given up so little that all we would have to do is get rid of our agricultural subsidies and developing countries would be lining up to trade with us, even with the precondition that they set some emissions standards or make some binding commitment under Kyoto. This would also decrease the size of our very inefficient (and polluting) domestic agricultural industry. It's win-win-win-win-win, except for all of the US farmers that get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars each year from the government to make crops and then dump them in poor countries' markets, depressing prices there and contributing to poverty in those countries.

Sincerely,

Nick Punto