While I consider the relationship with China vitally important, I have concerns with some of the claimed benefits of globalization.
We’ve spent most of the last 100 years in our country, improving our standard living through recognizing and managing external costs: worker protections so that workers don’t get ground into sausage when they slip in the slaughter house, clean water acts so our rivers don’t burn, clean air acts so acid rain doesn’t kill land and the air kills us, pollution controls so toxic waste doesn’t destroy entire communities.
These improvements have resulted in a hiring standard of living and greater structural costs for doing business here.
So why do we think beneficial to trade where the economic advantage is they’re still ignoring all those external costs?
It often seems like we saying we first have to help the emerging markets clear cut all their forest, like we mistakenly did, before we help them establish sustainable forest management.
We could roll back the clean air act, clean water act, OSHA requirements here, the environment reviews, the pollution regulation, so we’re competitive does anybody think that’s a good idea?
