Question

Two U.S. senators made the following argument against allowing free trade: "Fewer and fewer Americans support our government's trade policy. They see a shrinking middle class, lost jobs and exploding trade deficits. Yet supporters of free trade continue to push for more of the same - more job-killing trade agreements." Do you agree with these senators that reducing barriers to trade reduces the number of jobs available to workers in the United States?

Answer 1

Case Specifics:-

While, the concepts of free trade have long been considered the truest reason for development of the society, and economic classes gaining from the process of job creation in the developing and underdeveloped countries, it is long argued that the developed ones are falling apart and i agree to this.

United States has been a country which has always encouraged the idea of free trade and yet its middle class population are feeling the heat, when it comes to lost jobs and high trade deficits which affect everyone.

Supporters of free trade do not realize the problem at hand, because free trade offers higher flow of money into the economy plus a larger market space for them to be able to sell their products opens up.

However, for any government it is important to have an economy which does well in terms of equal distribution of money also.

This today is being hampered by cheap availability of manpower in countries such as India and China both of which produce at much lesser rates and thus companies as big as Apple have shifted their production bases into these countries restricting the jobs available in the United States.

On the other hand, these countries tend to have higher trade barriers in the name of protectionism which translates into the fact that goods manufactured by American Companies get sold at a relatively higher rate. This again causes the problem of a rising fiscal deficit.

Thus in my opinion the time is right to look inwards and take corrective measures, with an aim at ensuring that jobs are available for the middle class sections so that they can uplift themselves further & trade barriers should be imposed on countries such as India and China which on their part do not reduce the same for American Goods.

This will help in justifiable protectionism which is the need of the hour and is one of the key decisions taken by the Trump Administration in its Macro Economic policy of country first.

Conclusion:-

Thus, the conclusion which one can draw from this, is the fact that jobs have reduced in the United States as a result of manufacturing activities that end up in the Asian counterparts due to people accepting lower pay for jobs.

As a result, middle class skilled and unskilled labor force tend to lose their jobs which is negatively affecting the countries economics.

Corrective measures need to be taken, so as to ensure that United States as a country progresses in a justified manner to the general public at large & is not only answerable to the capitalists who are at a win win situation in case of free trade.

Please feel free to ask your doubts in the comments section