How to Save America: The Balanced Trade Restoration Act of 2014

How to Save America: The Balanced Trade Restoration Act of 2014

By Will Wilkin

There are so many problems in America today.  Long-term unemployment spreads as our manufacturing continues to move offshore and our wages stagnate or drop.  Our government and electorate seem hopelessly divided over partisan and culture war divides that paralyze the nation.  Even our Constitution and national sovereignty degenerate as Congressional paralysis cedes more power to the President, whose globalist ambitions move governance out of Washington and into international treaty organizations like the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Because of these problems, ordinary citizens, struggling to survive, are tempted with cynicism and disengagement from politics altogether.  But if we want our country to have a prosperous and democratic future, we can't give up!

Rebuild Our Economy: There is a Solution

Here is a way to turn much of this around and put our country on a constructive path.

Economy In Crisis has just published the text of the Balanced Trade Reconstruction Act of 2014, model legislation drafted by Balanced Trade Associates under the direction of Ken Davis.  Mr. Davis is a former US Assistant Secretary of Commerce and a former VP-CFO of IBM Inc.

If passed by Congress, the Balanced Trade Reconstruction Act of 2014 would limit our imports to the same value as our exports, diverting our trade deficits (averaging over $700 billion per year for the last decade) into that much more demand for US-made goods.  This would create over 8 million new US jobs over 3 years, rebuild American manufacturing and restore our tax base.

Economy In Crisis done some of the strongest reporting on the disastrous results of our Free Trade policy and the need to reduce imports.  We at Balanced Trade Associates emphatically agree.  My recent article "America Can Be Prosperous Again! Part One: Economic Problems" documents the loss of American manufacturing and jobs that have resulted from the flood of imports under Free Trade.

Restore Our Sovereignty

Economy In Crisis has also emphasized the need to fundamentally change or abrogate our FTAs and WTO terms of membership.  Again, we at Balanced Trade Associates emphatically agree.  We believe the Balanced Trade Restoration Act of 2014 will do just that.

With precisely those diplomatic issues in mind, the Balanced Trade Restoration Act of 2014 says:

"(6) In the spirit of Article XII of the GATT 1994, but under no circumstances contingent on any supranational adjudication of the matter, the United States will take steps to restore balance to its merchandise trade, and safeguard its external financial position and its balance of payments."

This clause is in anticipation of lawsuits being filed by our trading partners in the WTO or other international courts, against the law, in the event that Congress does pass the bill.  The Balanced Trade Restoration Act of 2014 invokes GATT Article XII but does not stand on it.  Rather it stands on the sovereignty of the United States of America, and on the first duty of our government to advance the national interest on behalf of the citizens who elect them and to whom they are accountable.

Tell Congress: Replace Imports with American-Made

Help us get this bill passed.  Download the pdf version of the draft bill.  Send the draft bill to your Congressional Representative and your 2 Senators in Washington.  Ask them to introduce the bill in Congress and find cosponsors from both parties.

For too long, Washington has been controlled by moneyed interest, many of which are globalized corporations with no loyalty to the USA.  They have had the initiative, and their lobbyists have been the interests behind the Free Trade policy so ruinous to our economy and sovereignty.  Even now, President Obama with bipartisan backing is negotiating even more of the NAFTA-style Free Trade treaties that have caused so much of our problems.  The President wants Congress to give him "Fast Track" authority to sign at least 3 new Free Trade treaties: the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP --also called the Trans-Atlantic Free Trade Agreement TAFTA) and the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA).

Most Congressional opposition to Fast Track and the TPP has been from Democrats voicing concern over the loss of US jobs, while those relatively few Republicans and conservatives have done so on the issues of Constitutional separation of powers and loss of American sovereignty.  All these issues are important, and combining them in this bill gives us a chance to break the log-jam in Congress by uniting around the national interest.

Ending our trade deficits and rebuilding American manufacturing and employment are not liberal or conservative agendas --they are the national interest around which all US citizens should agree.

Time is not on our side.  The longer our country delays addressing the trade deficits, the more our manufacturing base and long-term ability to create prosperity deteriorates.  Most other economic problems in America would be much easier to solve after we balance our trade: unemployment, poverty, growing inequality, fiscal crises.

Replacing Free Trade with a BALANCED TRADE POLICY will reverse American decline, rebuild our industries, and put our people back to work.

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Will Wilkin is the Deputy Director of Balanced Trade Associates and a Co-Owner-Operator of Made In USA Solar LLC.  Contact: willwilkin@balancedtrade.us