By Dave Wison

The America Wins with Trade tour rolled into Seattle this afternoon. We pulled up right next to that bustling block of vibrant free trade known at the Pike Place Market and with the Port of Seattle, another of our country’s important free trade arteries in the background we took our message to the people of Seattle. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Trade & Investment Policy for the U.S. Department of the Treasury David Kavanaugh joined the tour in Seattle to help us explain the important role that trade plays in the U.S. economy. In Washington State the consumer electronics industry generates almost $6 billion in economic activity and is responsible for almost 400,000 jobs.

Pike Place Market

As our trade tour bus rolled on out of Seattle across the beautiful Pacific Northwest on the way to Boise I was listening to the folks on CNBC. Their reporting made me recall my earlier thoughts on the ride up from Portland. If you’ll remember I was contemplating what domestic trade protectionism could do to the coffee business (see my earlier blog post). On CNBC they were talking about Ford Motor Company. As you may know, Ford recently released its financial results for the second quarter. Ford has a number of different divisions, four of which are Ford North America, Ford South America, Ford Europe and Ford Asia Pacific Africa. Just like last year Ford North America lost money in the second quarter, but Ford South America, Ford Europe and Ford Asia Pacific Africa each made money. Combined those three non-North American divisions showed a profit of over $1 billion, while the North American division lost money.

America Wins with Trade at the Port of Seattle

Now the free trade fear-mongers would have us believe that it’s good for Americans to make trade with other countries harder. They don’t seem particularly concerned about other countries adopting retaliatory trade barriers in response to U.S. trade barriers. Such retaliatory trade barriers would make it harder for the U.S. to trade with other countries. I think I understand where the fear-mongers are coming from. They’re concerned about the jobs of those Americans who make their living from the sale of Ford vehicles to other Americans, and the jobs of other Americans who make products for the American market. But what about the jobs of the Americans who are making their living from the sale of Ford vehicles to other countries, and from the sale of other companies’ products to other countries?

I mean, am I missing something? There are 300+ million people in the United States and over 6 billion in the rest of the world. It doesn’t seem to me that it could possibly be in the best interests of America to adopt protectionist trade policies that give U.S. businesses an advantage when selling to 300 million Americans, but put us at a disadvantage when trying to sell to 6 billion non-Americans.

Well, on to Boise to remind even more Americans that America Wins with Trade.

Fill’er up with free trade, please

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