ITC Report Finds Net Positive Impacts of Past FTAs on US Economy
Past free trade agreements have boosted U.S. exports, increased bilateral trade flows and improved the U.S. trade balance, according to an International Trade Commission report on U.S. trade pacts previously agreed to (here). The U.S. trade balance in 2015 was $87.5 billion more positive than it would’ve been without FTAs like NAFTA, the Uruguay Round Agreements and several bilateral agreements, the report says. ITC took into account the impacts of FTAs on the U.S. economy over the past 30 years. The report also found that the World Trade Organization Information Technology Agreement bolstered yearly IT exports covered by the agreement by 56.7 percent in 2010, and that Uruguay Round and NAFTA tariff reductions contributed to a 14.7 increase in U.S. steel imports in 2000.
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House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, welcomed the ITC report, while the committee’s Ranking Member Sandy Levin, D-Mich., criticized it for not taking into account transition costs connected with job losses and factory closures that FTAs have brought about. “I appreciate the ITC’s work and specifically welcome the news that trade agreements increased overall economic growth, employment, and wages in America and decreased the U.S. trade deficit,” Brady said in a statement (here). But ITC didn’t address key potential effects of trade agreements like income inequality and currency manipulation, Levin said in a statement (here). “They focus on the long-term benefit of lower tariffs in other countries and cheap imports coming into the United States, failing to capture the impact -- which they may call short term -- which can have a dramatic impact on jobs in America."