Read Online The Betrayal of the American Dream by Donald L. Barlett, James B. Steele - Free Book Online

a policy that would benefit the nation as a whole. Instead, the policy enriched a few at the expense of the many. They called it “free trade.”
    After the Second World War, the United States lowered tariffs on imports and thus opened its doors to manufactured products from abroad, in part to aid war-torn Europe and Asia. Because the United States was the world’s richest nation, policymakers maintained that we could afford to lower trade barriers without risking any economic harm to our own citizens. How could a few trinkets and cheap transistor radios from Japan possibly hurt the great American economy? Plus, they contended, it would be good for the U.S. economy: the more other countries prospered by selling to us, the more they could buy from us, which in turn would create more jobs at home. Reciprocity with our trading partners, we were told, would make it all work.
    Manufactured goods surged into the American market. The United States kept posting trade surpluses throughout the 1960s, but as imports continued to swell the surpluses dwindled—from $5 billion in 1960 to just $607 million in 1969. By 1972 a miniscule surplus had turned into a whopping $6.4 billion deficit. The U.S. market was open, but foreign markets for U.S. goods were not, and imports began to erode employment in long-established industries such as apparel, shoes, and textiles. The United States posted an anemic surplus in 1973 of $911 million, and that was the last trade surplus the country would ever see. Since then, there have been only deficits—for nearly forty consecutive years.
    The term “trade deficit” may seem abstract, but a nation’s trade balance is a fundamental indicator of the economic well-being of its workforce. When trade is in balance—when imports and exports are roughly the same—there are plenty of opportunities for good-paying jobs. But when imports swamp exports, as is the case in the United States, basic industries that provide solid support for middle-class Americans are undercut, and jobs vanish.
    By the 1970s, it was clear that free trade wasn’t going to be good for America’s workers. The steady erosion of good-paying jobs was under way. In the beginning it affected only blue-collar workers in manufacturing, but eventually it would spread. All the forces were in play that would systematically undermine and depress the earnings of millions.
    If Washington had been truly concerned about the livelihoods of working people, it could have dealt with the growing trade issue then and there by putting in place a system that was fair to all. Instead, it passed the Trade Act of 1974, which fostered the illusion that Washington cared but in fact ensured the continuation of the same policies that were destroying jobs.
    The act was prompted after Congress held hearings on foreign trade practices that were hurting American manufacturers. It was the first of what would become a steady stream of trade bills in the next few decades. Sponsors claimed they were designed to safeguard domestic workers and force our trading partners to open their markets to American goods.
    The Trade Act of 1974 was a huge bill filled with arcane provisions, but its main purpose was to show our trading partners that this country was no longer going to be Mr. Nice Guy. The act would be a template for Congress for decades to come—a sort of how-to guide to pacifying workers in the short term by promising action on trade, but doing nothing to solve the problem in the long run, thereby bowing to the wishes of Wall Street, which would make trillions on globalization.
    In urging adoption of the 1974 act, Democratic senator Russell Long of Louisiana said that “the United States can no longer stand by and expose its markets, while other nations shelter their economies—often in violation of international agreements . . . [with] practices which effectively discriminate against U.S. trade and production.” Republican senator William Roth of Delaware