Gaat de race alleen naar beneden?

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

De boodschap is dus duidelijk: Amerikaanse leveranciers moeten meer en
goedkoper produceren, anders heeft Amerika geen toekomst.
Hierin past een Europese pensioenleeftijd van 67 jaar om te kunnen
concurreren, of zijn er toch andere mogelijkheden?
Gaat de race alleen naar beneden?

Groet / Cees

Obama and China: Vandalism or Vision
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-l-borosage/obama-and-china-vandalism_b_303428.html
"Vandalism" screams the cover of the Economist, depicting Obama leaving an
ice pick in the tire of free trade. (No racial overtones there; after all,
as the president explained, he was black before he was elected.). When the
president imposed tariffs on Chinese tire imports, following the ruling of
the independent International Trade Commission, the free trade
establishment went ballistic. David Rockefeller took to the op ed pages to
warn of the threat of surrendering to the protectionist instincts of his
union allies. Editorialists from the Washington Post to the New York Times
sternly rebuked the president for deviating from the free trade gospel.
Surely, the heavens will tremble; trade wars impend; the apocalypse of
Depression era Smoot Hawley tariffs are sure to descend upon us.

Nonsense. Obama isn't descending into the old trade debate. Remarkably, he
has added another explosive issue to his already crowded agenda: that of
transforming America's global economic strategy. At the G-20 meetings in
Pittsburgh, he succeeded in gaining international approval - including
that of the Chinese - for a continuing review of the unsustainable
imbalances in the global economy. The decision on Chinese tires may just
be the president suggesting that he may put some teeth into digesting that
change.

Like health care, climate change, and financial reform, the challenge is
inescapable. America can't go back to borrowing $2 billion a day from
abroad to act as the world's consumer. Americans can't go back to spending
more than they make, maxing out credit cards, treating their homes as an
ATM machine. Those days are over.

That means, as the President has said, the US must spend less and invest
more. We must produce more at home, and export more. If that is the case,
then inevitably the surplus countries, the mercantilist nations that have
used export led growth to drive their economies - China, Germany, Japan
and others - also have to change course. They have to save less and spend
more, import more and export less. If they don't generate increased demand
while the US cuts back, then the recession will return with a vengeance.
This entails wrenching changes in public policy and private attitudes. But
what's clear is that the old imbalances were and are a constant peril,
supplying the kerosene for the contagion that laid waste to the global
economy.

At Pittsburgh, President Obama insisted that the leaders of the world's
major economies make this a centerpiece of their agenda. He exacted an
agreement -- despite the stated skepticism of Germany's Chancellor Angela
Merkel and China's leaders -- on a framework for "strong, sustainable and
balanced growth." The G-20 countries agreed to set priorities, report
annually on their own domestic policies, and monitor one another, with the
IMF serving as an independent goad.

Cynics dismissed the agreement as toothless. There's no enforcement
mechanism except naming and shaming (which hasn't exactly proved effective
in dealing with China). The IMF has been warning about these imbalances
for years to no effect. China and Germany vigorously resist any external
questioning of their national economic policies. Merkel dismissed global
imbalances as an "ersatz" issue. Tu Jianhua, director general for
international trade in the Chinese commerce ministry, tweaked the West,
noting that "I'm not sure that one country's leader calling another to
import more represents market practices." The G-20 couldn't even get a
murmur concerning currency manipulation (a central Chinese strategy) in
the document.

The cynicism may be deserved. But here's where the Obama decision on tire
tariffs has bite. As the free trade zealots admit, tire imports barely
register on US-China trade accounts. The decision is important for its
symbolism, not its substance. That's why the free trade lobby howls about
protectionism.

But the president may well have moved beyond the screamers to an adult
discussion. He's telling the Chinese, these staggering imbalances can't
continue. We should both adjust, preferably in a coordinated fashion. But
the US is serious about changing the game. If we can't do that
cooperatively, then we'll find a way to do it independently.

Now this is a dance that makes the tango look demure. The US is the
world's largest debtor. We're telling our leading banker that we're
changing our wastrel ways, so they'll need to find a different way to
prosper. But the US is hardly in a position to dictate policy to the
Chinese. They've already sent tremors through the bond market by raising
doubts about the US finances.

Will Obama succeed? It's hard to know, for this transformation will
require major reconstructive surgery to economies at home and abroad,
compared to which health care reform is a mere face lift. In the short
term, consumers, sobered by their losses in the Great Recession, are
tightening their belts on their own. Savings by US households have soared
to four times the rate of 2008 before the financial collapse. Chinese
exports are down 23% from last August. But once the economy recovers and
people go back to work, Americans may well go back to borrowing and
spending. And we know that Wall Street has already reopened the casino.

One thing is clear. As in health care, energy, and financial reform, Obama
has once more addressed an inescapable challenge that his predecessors
ignored. He has once more aroused the ire of one of the most powerful
lobbies -- in this case, the global corporations and the free trade
zealots that have dug this country into a deep hole. Once more, he has
done so cautiously, in small steps, ready to compromise, hoping not to
offend. Once more, he's invited Americans - -and the world - into an adult
conversation about what is to be done. And once more, he's likely to be
greeted by hysteria and insult, graphically illustrated by the Economist's
disreputable cover.

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