A Reply on Economic Coordination and Trade

This post was meant to be a reply to the comments made by an acquaintance of mine.  As usual, however, I have a terrible tendency to be verbose.  So instead of writing it as another reply and thus make unreasonable demands on the readers’ time and patience, I have decided to write this as a separate post.  It is a response as to why I believe efforts among countries to get out of the economic crises we’re facing should be coordinated and why I tend to advocate for free trade among nations, although only a few of the reasons I favor free trade are here.

To the extent that different factors are affecting each country in economic crisis differently, a coordinated effort among the major economies to pull the world out of recession will have a better chance of success than if each went their separate ways.  However, to be realistic, coordination is likely to take some time to get the cooperation of the major nations, and time is something that is in short supply as the crisis seems to be spiraling ever faster.  Thus countries may no longer have the luxury to engage in a cooperative effort in some areas.

As for the US trading relationships, the trade agreements we have with other nations do take some of our sovereignty away as the US cannot unilaterally abrogate those agreements without retaliatory consequences and in some cases violating the US Constitution’s provision that treaties between the US and other nations that are ratified by the US Senate are to be treated as “the law of the land.”  We are interconnected with other countries whether we like it or not.

As someone who believes in the dignity of every human being, I would like to see a world without human poverty.  For now, I realize that this is not possible.  Nevertheless, more people can rise out of poverty if they are able to have the opportunity of selling their creative efforts, either the goods they create with their hands or the intellectual output of their minds, to the people of the more prosperous countries of the world such as the United States.  This is one reason why I favor open markets.  However, you are correct to say this is a hard sell to a public that seen jobs shed as industries have declined for many years, and many of those jobs won’t be coming back.  Yet I cannot help but think that the nation’s efforts to retrain, reeducate, and reintegrate displaced workers back into the economy have been abysmally ineffective and inadequate.

Now for the “full disclosure” statement that will give you an understanding of my position.  I am the son of immigrants to the US.  I have cousins who are citizens of other countries on two continents.  Their well-being is very important to me.  If I had the dichotomous choice of seeing my foreign cousins or my American neighbor prosper, I’d would choose to see that my foreign cousins should prosper.  After all, blood is thicker than water.  Fortunately, such a dichotomous choice need not have to be made.  Both my neighbor and my cousins can prosper together.  My neighbor can do the work that he is best-suited for and my cousins can do the work they are best suited for and they all will be rewarded for the fruits of their labors together.