Fifth District Congressman Robert Hurt vigorously defended his vote in favor of the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) against hostile questions from constituents in Albemarle County on Saturday, one day after the controversial TPA bill came to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Hurt stood firm against questioners at the county GOP’s monthly breakfast who asserted that the TPA gave President Obama unprecedented authority to negotiate free trade deals and who argued that free trade does not benefit Americans because usually imports rise more than exports do after free-trade agreements are implemented. He told me later that free trade is consistent with Republican and conservative principles and “would make Ronald Reagan proud.”
The idea that free trade benefits Americans only if it decreases the trade deficit or only if exports rise faster than imports has been debunked both by the conservative Heritage Foundation and the libertarian Cato Institute.
As David Boaz wrote in a Cato blog post titled “The Benefit of Free Trade Is Not Exports, It’s Lower Prices on Things We Want,”
This whole “exports and jobs” framework is misguided. Thirty years ago in the Cato Journal, the economist Ronald Krieger explained the difference between the economist’s and the non-economist’s views of trade. The economist believes that “The purpose of economic activity is to enhance the wellbeing of individual consumers and households.” And, therefore, “Imports are the benefit for which exports are the cost.” Imports are the things we want—clothing, televisions, cars, software, ideas—and exports are what we have to trade in order to get them.
Heritage analysts Ryan Olson and Anthony Kim made a similar point in an issue brief on May 11 called “Congress Should Recognize the Dynamic Benefits of Imports,” which lists five specific benefits of greater access to imports for American consumers:
A growing number of economists and advocates of free trade have established that imports provide choices and opportunities that increase individual and national prosperity. These benefits do not come at the expense of economic dynamism. Instead, expanded economic activity due to trade in both directions creates jobs. Congress can best bolster the U.S. economy—and increase employment—by moving away from protectionism and toward freer trade that takes full advantage of the benefits of imports.
As Hurt left the Albemarle GOP breakfast, he paused for about six minutes with Bearing Drift before driving himself to another constituent event in Crozet. Here is part one of the audio recording of our interview, in which Congressman Hurt explains what TPA does and what it does not do:
And here is part two of the interview, in which Hurt notes how President Obama is distrusted by conservatives and how his Fifth District constituents can benefit from free trade:
Over on Examiner.com, I pulled some excerpts from this interview:
Hurt cited Internet rumors like “’this means we’re going to give the president the authority to change immigration law!’” Those, he said, are “just totally, 100 percent false. It does not.”
He explained that, contrary to those rumors, “in order for any law of the United States to change, it has to come through Congress.”
Moreover, he said, “if it’s pursuant to a free trade agreement, it has to come through Congress twice, because it has to be adopted as a free trade agreement and, secondly, the actual change of the law has to be adopted through implementing legislation, which would be a second shot at the apple.”
Taking aim at the Internet rumor mill, Hurt asserted that “the idea that this President can affect any of our laws unilaterally or that we’re going to submit to some international tribunal is just hogwash.”
There will be another vote on these issues next week, probably Tuesday. Hurt pointed out that Speaker of the House John Boehner moved to reconsider the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) bill, which was defeated by an odd coalition of conservatives and left-liberals.
“The Speaker filed a motion to reconsider on the floor yesterday, which means we will reconsider the TAA vote next week, probably, and I believe this is correct. If we adopt the TAA measure, if it gets passed, if Nancy Pelosi stops siding with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and sides with the President, then there’s a chance that all of it gets put back on track.”
Until then, free trade policy — not just TPA and TPP, but also AGOA (reauthorization of the African Growth and Opportunity Act, which passed the Senate last month on a 98-1 vote) — is at a standstill in Congress.
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