Gallagher publishes Op-Ed about Trump’s trade policies
Kevin P. Gallagher, Professor of Global Development Policy at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies and Director of the Global Development Policy Center at Boston University, published his second Op-Ed this week in response to United States President Donald Trump’s recent tariff and trade negotiations. Gallagher anticipates the consequences these decisions have on a global scale.
The Op-Ed, entitled “Trade rules are deeply flawed but Trump’s tariff fixation is hurting America and the rest of the world,” was published in The Conversation on July 6, 2018.
From the text of the Op-Ed:
Trump’s tariff fixation and predisposition to renege on every trade deal his predecessors adopted won’t right these wrongs. Some of these moves may give temporary relief to workers and industries in areas long battered from bad policy. But this strategy will ultimately fail for three reasons.
First, the tariffs that do improve conditions for some workers will eventually squeeze workers in other businesses – and in foreign countries. For example, higher tariffs on imported steel and aluminum will harm the automotive industry and construction, which are big employers. That was a lesson the White House should have learned from reviewing what happened when President George W. Bush experimented with similar across-the-board tariff hikes in 2002.
Second, Trump’s alternatives to the trade entanglements he inherited – as seen in his NAFTA renegotiation proposals – would still tilt the rules toward big oil, gas and pharmaceutical companies over consumers, citizens and the environment.
Third and most importantly, trade policies are simply tools that should help achieve broader economic goals. And so far, Trump has not given any hints that his team is hatching a parallel set of economic policies that will benefit all Americans, let alone the world economy.
Gallagher served on the U.S. Department of State’s Investment Subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy and the International Investment Division of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. He has served as a visiting or adjunct professor at the Paul Nitze School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University; El Colegio de Mexico in Mexico; Tsinghua University in China; and the Center for State and Society in Argentina. You can follow him on Twitter @KevinPGallagher.