An interesting point on outsourcing
Irwin Stelzer has an interesting essay in the Daily Standard on how economic interdependence can constrain U.S. foreign policy. Buried within it is this nugget of analysis: the trade deficit issue is more complicated than the simple trade figures suggest. Take Wal-Mart. The giant retailer imports about $12 billion in goods from China every year, ...
Irwin Stelzer has an interesting essay in the Daily Standard on how economic interdependence can constrain U.S. foreign policy. Buried within it is this nugget of analysis:
Irwin Stelzer has an interesting essay in the Daily Standard on how economic interdependence can constrain U.S. foreign policy. Buried within it is this nugget of analysis:
the trade deficit issue is more complicated than the simple trade figures suggest. Take Wal-Mart. The giant retailer imports about $12 billion in goods from China every year, enabling it to sell trainers, T-shirts, and a host of other goods to American consumers at prices they just love. So is the trade deficit costing Americans jobs? Perhaps not. Stephanie Pomboy of consultants MacroMavens reports that “Since China first pegged the Yuan to the dollar in 1994, Wal-Mart has nearly tripled its workforce from 528,000 to 1.4 million today. And that’s before counting the jobs associated with its plans to add 210 supercenters and 40 Sam’s clubs [Wal-Mart’s bulk discounter] stores this year.” The hundreds of thousands hired by Wal-Mart probably don’t realize that their jobs depend on their employer’s continued access to Chinese goods. But the 300,000-500,000 U.S. workers who lost their jobs over the past three years as a result of the “relocation of U.S. production to overseas affiliates” are certain that low-cost Chinese labor and the undervalued currency are the source of their woes. And they don’t care that job losses due to such relocations come to only 0.1 percent of employment per year.
Indeed. UPDATE: In September the U.S. economy shed another 17,000 jobs in manufacturing, according to CNN at the horrible cost of creating 74,000 new jobs in services, most of them in the “professional and business services” category. Oh, wait…
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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