If you had to support a trade restriction, which would it be?

Question

-National Defense

-Sanctions to Punish Offending Nations

-Protect Infant (or Dying) Industry

-Protect Domestic Jobs from Cheap Foreign Labor

-Scientific Tariff or Fair Competition

-Retaliation

Why?

Answer 1

Insist on fair trade not free trade. Hold imports to the same standards that we have to follow in making product. For example no lead based paints. Protect against dumping product in this country.

Answer 2

Protect Domestic Jobs from Cheap Foreign Labor

Because I was just laid off as my job went to India.

Recent reports of the widespread offshoring (substituting foreign for domestic labor) of white-collar jobs that were previously insulated from foreign competition have attracted much public attention. Although workers in manufacturing industries have long been exposed to foreign competition, trends such as falling communication costs, the rise of Internet commerce, and other technological advances have made a much wider spectrum of jobs vulnerable to relocation across national borders.

This issue guide aims to provide some insight into the economics of white-collar offshoring: its causes, consequences, impact on the U.S. economy, and implications for the future.

Policy implications of offshoring

Offshoring of white-collar work remains relatively modest when measured in aggregate employment flows. In some key industries, however, (software, for example) this employment impact is likely quite significant. Furthermore, the overall economic impact of offshoring is potentially enormous. Employer announcements of plans to move more white-collar jobs abroad can have an immediate effect on the on willingness of the current workforce to accept lower pay increases and to work harder. If a greater share of jobs in the United States becomes exposed to foreign competition, this could place steady downward pressure on wages of U.S. workers.

For years, policy makers and trade advocates recommended training and the acquisition of technical skills as the remedy for the depressing wage effects of trade on blue-collar workers' wages. This prescription was always insufficient, and the recent trend toward offshoring white-collar work just serves to emphasize this.

The challenge to policy makers in the United States is to make sure the potential benefits to be gained from trade in services are widely shared. Capital-owners and corporations seemed poised to reap large benefits from service trade; public policy needs to insure that U.S. workers are compensated for the extra risk they now bearing due to competition with workers all over the globe. This compensation should take the form of large social insurance programs (publicly guaranteed health and pension benefits) as well as more-directed programs like making sure that service-sector workers displaced by trade are eligible for trade-adjustment assistance (TAA).

Furthermore, the publicly owned firms that engage in offshoring ought to at least be transparent in their business dealings, offering layoff notices and providing clear accounting of the employment in their various units, both domestic and abroad.

Less controversially, there seems to be no reason why the U.S. tax code should privilege offshoring over domestic employment, and proposals to fix any such asymmetry should be welcomed. In addition, there should be a strong consensus to fix the official data on imports of services (which has been shown to be woefully inadequate). The Bureau of Economic Analysis should be provided the resources necessary to understand why its surveys are not picking up the extent of offshoring and to collect the data necessary to correct the problem.