I really appreciate Zaf Iqbal’s editorial commentaries including: “Dump Trump,” (June 9). However, I disagree with Zaf’s brief comments on trade with China. Zaf suggested Trump would risk a trade war with China that would lead to a “… drop in demand … (of U.S. exports to China equaling) $116 billion last year.”
Zaf doesn’t follow this argument to the next important step. Americans would benefit from $481 billion in demand that we sent to China plus the addition of material and intellectual capital investment to create those consumer products. This $365 billion difference would add millions of American jobs and stop that increased national debt. While this is a simple model it shows the destructive nature of our current trade policy, promoted by a false “free trade” Wall Street ideology, and accepted by much of the media. Yes, Trump scares Wall Street but he has struck a chord with American workers. Doubling down on bad trade policies won’t help defeat him.
In the last years of his life, John Maynard Keynes recognized the extreme importance of balanced trade. I hope that Zaf will be open to my criticism and talk to me about these ideas. I value his opinion. Two books that might bring out the importance of this discussion are Bad Samaritans—The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism by economist Ha-Joon Chang, and The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.
This article appears in Jun 23-30, 2016.
