Free Trade Benefits the United States

The trade regulations I advocate are targeted towards specific problems with unfettered free trade. I don't argue massive tariffs on every industry. To the extent that Pro's rebuttals attack wholesale protectionism, they simply miss their mark.SurvivalPro admits that we must drastically reduce carbon emissions to save our planet. Pro admits that we must do this now before it's too late. And Pro admits that global warming is an externality. Yet instead of *internalizing* global warming, Pro says we're better off leaving our survival to the chance that the market will reduce emissions on its own.Pro fails to realize that free trade is driven solely by prices, and if prices don't account for the harmful effects of carbon emissions, there's no incentive to reduce carbon emissions. In fact, the opposite happens: carbon emissions increase as a way to grab a cost advantage. Carbon emissions have increased every single year over the past 30 years as we've liberalized trade. We need to change that now. And the change can't be incremental. We need to lower emissions by at least 8-10% per year to ensure our survival. [23] Free markets alone can't effect that kind of change.Pro dismisses my arguments because they lacked any sources. But not all arguments require sources. Mine doesn't. The argument I made is analytic, not empirical. But experience proves me right.Pro also cites two sources. They don't help.The first source "estimates" that a 1% increase in sulfur dioxide output from free trade leads to a decrease in sulfur dioxide concentration of around .8%. The estimation is based on a limited theoretic framework and limited empirical data (since it doesn't look at actual free trade). It's also totally irrelevant because it dealt with sulfur dioxide. The source even notes that limitation explicitly: "Free trade appears to lower sulfur dioxide concentrations for an average country in our sample, but may of course worsen the environment through other channels. Our evidence is specific to sulfur dioxide." The issue in this debate is reducing carbon dioxide, not sulfur dioxide. Carbon emissions are an entirely different ballpark. The regulations that affect carbon are completely different than the regulations that affect sulfur emissions. Also, note that Pro's source actually finds an increase in pollution output. It's the increase in output that also leads to a decrease in concentration. This is very limited evidence compared to the huge number of studies showing harm to the environment from free trade: [18] [19] [20] [21] [22] Pro's second source supports my argument, not Pro's. It states: "Current actions are not enough if we are to stabilize greenhouse gases (GHGs) at any acceptable level. The economic challenges are complex and will require a long-term international collaboration to tackle them." Acknowleding that "no [trade] measures for climate change are in use anywhere in the world," it finds that "theoretical analysis points to a role for trade restrictions." In fact, Pro completely distorts his source's findings. Pro fails to mention that we're talking about liberalizing trade in renewables while maintaining tariffs on fossil fuels. The study finds, just as I suggested in R2, that taxing carbon-intensive industries while liberalizing trade in renewables leads to increased use of renewables, which in turn leads to a reduction in emissions. This is precisely what I suggested would happen with a tariff targeted specifically at fossil fuels. Pro argues that "tariffs would lead to an inefficient allocation of resources due to the loss of comparative advantage." But inefficiency is a better outcome than human extinction. And again, Pro's argument relies on the theory of "comparative advantage," which is wrong (see R2). Pro dropped that, or apparently deferred his response.Pro says "losing efficiency means more waste and higher emissions from inefficient production." This is untrue. First, Pro offers no evidence that "inefficient allocation" leads to "inefficient production." On the contrary, as Pro's second source suggests, targeted tariffs and subsidies can increase efficient production and reduce emissions by encouraging efficient clean energy. Second, "waste" refers to an economic loss, not to an environmental harm. Don't let Pro muddle this this issue: we're weighing potential economic growth against certain extinction of our species. Given our looming planetary ecological catastrophe, it's clear that environmental protections are necessary even at the cost of degrowth. Which isn't to say there's any degrowth; I'm just emphasizing the importance of collapse of reducing emissions. SustainabilityPro argues that there's no link between free trade and our international investment position. But that is simply untrue. Free trade *allows* deficit trading, which is directly related to a country's international investment position. An international investment position is a statement of a country's foreign assets and debts. Free trade creates foreign debts via trade deficits.Pro completely drops my impacts. The results of deficit trading are disastrous for our economy. If there are any economic benefits to free trade, they're completely outweighed by the harms from deficit trading.Trade regulations can bring our trade closer into balance. Warren Buffet suggested one solution: give exporters $1 certificates for every dollar they export, and then require that importers buy a certificate for every dollar of goods they import. This would immediately bring our trade into balance.Pro broadly asserts that all trade regulations hurt the economy. But Pro offers no substantiation for this assertion. I've explained how trade deficits weaken our economy. Pro hasn't argued otherwise.Smoot-Hawley is irrelevant. I'm don't argue for Smoot-Hawley or anything even remotely similar. I support initiatives that bring our trade closer to balance, not drastic increases on tariffs for all industries. Pro's attack on Smoot-Hawley is a strawman and a red herring.InequalityPro admits that free trade increases inequality. Pro also drops all the impacts of inequality. Those impacts include more mental illness, drug abuse, obesity, teenage pregnancy, crime, violence, lower life expectancy, harm to trust and community life, harm to overall child well-being, and unsurprisingly, harm to the economy.Remarkably, Pro nonetheless asserts without any substantiation that economic growth from free trade outweighs all these social harms. I have two responses. First, the impact from an increase in GDP simply cannot outweigh these harms. Pro doesn't even tell us what the impact is. Growth has little if any positive impact. It simply means more wealth. It doesn't tell us who possesses that wealth. Nor does it tell us if more wealth is good for those people.What are they buying with that money? In the US, only a tiny proportion of production and human labor is devoted to actual human needs as opposed to market-generated wants. Over a trillion dollars is spent every year on marketing. More growth means more marketing, more market-generated wants, and more consumption of stuff we don't need. More growth doesn't mean more food, clothing, shelter, health care, education, or public transportation. More growth doesn't mean a cleaner environment. More growth doesn't mean less poverty or inequality. And most importantly, more growth doesn't mean more happiness. Research has found "no trace of a relationship between income and happiness." In fact, studies suggest that "wealth may undermine people's ability to savor positive events." [17] In other words, the rich may experience less happiness because awesome things like caviar and champagne become a regular experience instead of something to appreciate and savor. Accumulating wealth for its own sake might even be net harmful.Second, Pro fails to address my point that inequality slows economic growth. Pro hasn't offered a single reason to believe that growth from free trade outweighs degrowth from inequality. Pro's source, an article by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, offers no substantiation for its assertions. The article doesn't explain how free trade leads to job growth. It simply assert that free trade increases GDP based on an observed GDP increase. But there's no analysis as to what caused the GDP increase; it could have been any number of things besides free trade. And even if GDP increases, it doesn't mean the benefits pass onto most Americans. Most Americans work blue-collar jobs and are thus left unemployed by free trade. Then, they end up less happy because of greater inequality, and end up being at higher risk for mental illness, obesity, crime, and all the other impacts of inequality. To assert that an abstract quantifier like GDP outweighs all the harms from an increase in inequality simply misunderstands the nature of human well-being and happiness.RebuttalPro defers his defense of "innovation and the gains of trade" until R4. This deprives me of a rebuttal in R3, which is both unfair and a violation of Pro's requirements in R1. With three days per round, Pro effectively gets nine days to write his defense while I only get three days to respond. Timing matters. Six extra days of research and polish increases the quality of one's arguments significantly. Pro gets an unfair structural advantage because of that. If Pro had no intention of addressing my rebuttal until R4, the debate should have been structured to limit rebuttals to R3 and R4. Instead, Pro required rebuttal in R2. Not addressing that rebuttal until R4 is abusive towards that requirement. Pro says he "ran out of time." But that's not an excuse. Everyone must balance time. R1 states: "you must make sure that there are no things in your schedule that would potentially prevent you from completing every round." Yet Pro couldn't complete his round because he "ran out of time." Punish him for that.Sources in the comments and reposted in R4.