Thread: Here's how a Trump trade war would hit your state

Here's how a Trump trade war would hit your state

John W. Schoen | @johnwschoen
6 Hours Ago CNBC.com

If your state exports goods and services to China or Mexico, you may want to pay closer attention to the presidential candidates' positions on global trade.

After decades of liberalized trade deals and lower tariffs helped boost import and export traffic around the world, the engine of global trade is slowing. That's one reason the overall pace of the global economic growth remains relatively weak.

That wave of globalization has also produced a backlash — from American voters who've lost their jobs to British voters who go to the polls Thursday to decide whether to reclaim their independence from the European Union.

In the United States, anti-free-trade sentiment has propelled real estate developer Donald Trump to the front of the GOP pack of presidential candidates, including a pledge to reverse the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico, the two top U.S. trade partners.

"We will either renegotiate it or we will break it," Trump said last fall, calling it "a disaster. Every agreement has an end. Every agreement has to be fair."

Trump has also vowed to raise tariffs on Mexico and China. Those higher tariffs would almost certainly cut into U.S. exports, which represent about $2 trillion, or roughly one-eighth of the nation's gross domestic product.

But that impact varies widely from one U.S. state to another, with West Coast states more heavily reliant on Chinese markets and border states seeing the biggest demand from Mexico.

China represents the third-largest U.S. export market, after Canada and Mexico, accounting for nearly $120 billion worth of goods last year. Overall, that represents less than 8 percent of U.S. exports — or less than 1 percent of total gross domestic product.

But the Chinese market is a much bigger deal for a handful of West Coast states.

Among the most dependent: Washington, which sold roughly 20 percent of its exports to China last year, or nearly $19 billion worth of goods. Airplanes, the state's largest export by far, made up the bulk of the state's sales to China.

California exports some $16 billion to mainland China, with computers and electronics accounting for more than a quarter of the total. Texas was the third-largest exporter to China, with more than $11 billion worth of products that included chemicals, computers and machinery.

Alaska, which exports a smaller volume of goods, sends $1.5 billion worth of its exports — a quarter of the total — to China. Roughly half of that consists of seafood.

U.S. farm states are also big exporters to China, which is the biggest single market for American agricultural products. Some 20 percent of all U.S. farm exports are sold to China, which bought $30 billion worth of food and other farm products in fiscal year 2014, including soybeans, distillers' grains, hides and skins, tree nuts, coarse grains, cotton and beef, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Mexico — the second-largest U.S. market — bought $236 billion, or nearly 16 percent of last year's total sale of goods and services overseas. Those sales supported an estimated 1.1 million jobs in 2014, according to the latest data available from the Department of Commerce.

The top Texas products sold south of the border include computers ($95 billion last year), transportation equipment ($24 billion) and oil and chemicals ($23 billion).

Other border states also depend heavily on Mexico as a buyer of exports. New Mexico sends 45 percent of its exports south of the border.

But even as the pace of global trade slows, so does support for a pair of deals designed to revive it.

After years of talks and months of high-profile meetings and speeches to win approval, the White House so far has failed to convince Congress — or voters — that lowering trade barriers with Europe and Asia will help boost the growth of the U.S. economy.

The future of trade deals

Earlier this year, President Obama met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to try to win backing for the so-called Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, aimed at boosting trade between the U.S. and European economies. The United States is Germany's biggest trading partner.

Supporters of the sweeping deal being negotiated with 28 European Union countries say it could add $100 billion a year to U.S. exports.

The Obama administration's Asia-Pacific trade deal has also gotten a chilly reception from the Democratic presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton.

The former Secretary of State, who initially supported the idea of expanding Asia-Pacific trade, has come out against the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, saying she doesn't like the terms. (Clinton hasn't taken a position on the ongoing talks to reach a deal with Europe.)

The White House has acknowledged it faces an uphill battle selling trade deals to a skeptical public.

"I think that we have to do a better job … to counteract voices that are distorting the reality of trade agreements," U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker told CNBC earlier this year.

But with little support from the presidential candidates, the deal's future is not looking bright.

Obama has conceded as much in his efforts to win support.

"If we don't complete negotiations this year, then upcoming political transitions in the United States and Europe could mean this agreement won't be finished for quite some time," Obama said at a news conference earlier this year.

— By CNBC's John Schoen. Follow him on Twitter @johnwschoen or email him.

http://www.cnbc.com/2016/06/23/heres...our-state.html

This is a bunch of bunk. There will be no trade war. We don't tax exports. So if other countries want our stuff, it is up to them to decide whether or not to tax them upon entry. What do we care? We don't care. That's up to them. If they don't want our products, fine, we'll buy them.

Exports are only 2 trillion of our entire GDP. Under the present scenario, our government wastes more than that every year on the consequences of free trade treason, lost jobs, unemployment, massive immigration, poverty, welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, charities, etc., etc., etc.

501 C 3 "charities" siphon off over $1.3 trillion a year from our private sector economy. No one complains about that, except me and Darrel Issa.

You have it all wrong!

I am an International freight Forwarder and in the industry for over 30 years and you are so wrong.

First of all, 50 years ago America was the strongest manufacturing engine in the world supplying not only
our domestic needs but also the main global supplier / exporter of all commodities. We had no stacks of empty
shipping containers lining our 322 vessel ports.

Manufacturing companies offered many, many high level job positions which exploded the growth of our middle to upper
class individuals and families. This explosion of wealth helped everyone from the small self employed, to truck drivers,
service industry, real estate boom, luxury car buying, new business entrepreneurs and so on.

From 1988 to approx 2003, New York & Los Angeles was the textile & shoe capital of the world. New York's 7th Ave, 8th Ave
& Broadway was lined with all garment & shoe showrooms block after block. Today, none exist anymore.

During this same time period, the city & county of Los Angeles from Long Beach, to Compton, to downtown Los Angeles, to
City of Commerce was the mega hub for textile & garment manufacturing, Trim Suppliers, Cutters, Pattern Makers, Packers,
fabric suppliers and so on. These cities were lined with warehouse after warehouse and the back bone to our economy and
EXPORT GDP!

Today, these streets are lined with vacant, boarded up, graffiti trashed buildings that have devastated both local and surrounding
communities flooding them with illegal aliens, gangs and crime.

Yes, domestic goods may cost a little more money but history has shown this is not a problem when our economy
is strong with good paying jobs and salaried senior level management job positions.

We as a country benefit, not just a few globalist who happen to have connections with the likes of Hillary Clinton
and her corrupt cronies in DC.

When people make more money, they complain less and spend more money!

Washington State is nothing much more than a bloodsucker on the US anyway. Sen. Patty Murray, despite her progressive rhetoric, is a lapdog for Boeing, and all of the waste that goes with them. China will probably try to build their own jetliners anyway---they are moving ahead speedily in many fields---but I sure would never fly in one! WA economy is so overheated that they are considering an outrageous sum ($50 billion) just in Seattle area transit. Think of what they could accomplish with this directed to their economy instead.

Report: Washington, D.C., Is Now the Richest U.S. City

Oct 19, 2011

The nation's capital swapped places with San Jose to become the wealthiest metropolitan area in the country by median income last year, according to Bloomberg analysis of Census data. The typical D.C. household made $84,000 last year, 60% higher than the national median.

Why D.C.? Here are five reasons. First, D.C. has always been pretty well-off, thanks to the nation's highest concentration of college degrees and lawyers. Second, federal employees (who account for about one-sixth of the city) make a cool $126,000 in typical compensation, which seems appropriate since many of them are skimmed from the top of numerous high-paying industries, like finance, regulation, law, and strategic communications. Third, the federal government was the only major part of the economy that grew during the recession, and the region's contractors and employees benefited. (State capitals around the country tended to experience shallower recession for a similar reason: stimulus money flowed from the federal capital through state capitals.) Fourth, despite the president's goals, D.C. is still a hotbed of rich finance and health care lobbyists jockeying for favor in the president's agenda, and they push up the typical salary. Fifth, D.C. is a small city bracketed by two very rich, very well-educated suburban regions that have grown, with the help of government spending (NIH in Maryland; IT in northern Virginia) into economic powerhouses.

I'd be willing to bet that D.C. and San Jose will switch places again next year. The Bloomberg survey looks at 2010 data. In 2011, Republicans have pressed Congress to control spending, and the region has suffered. Since April, the number of employed people in the District has dropped by 9,000, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond. "The deterioration in the labor market since April is greater than the deterioration over any five-month period during the recent recession," the report found. Even so, Washington, D.C., is much healthier than almost any other metro area in the country precisely because so much business revolves around the nearly recession-immune federal government, as opposed to the real estate and manufacturing industries, which expand and contract based on uncertain demand rather than guaranteed services.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/...s-city/246993/

It's obvious who the 1% are that is destroying America.

3 Wealthiest U.S. Counties Are Virginia Suburbs of D.C.

December 9, 2015 | 12:01 PM EST



(CNSNews.com) - Five of the nation's Top Ten wealthiest counties--when measured by median household income in 2014--are suburbs of Washington, D.C.; and the three wealthiest are all in suburban Virginia, according to data released today by the Census Bureau.

Falls Church, Va.--an independent city which the Census counts as a county--led the nation with a median household income of $125,635 in 2014.

Loudon County, Va., was second with a median household income of $122,641.

Fairfax County, Va., was third with a median household income of $110,507.

The two other Washington, D.C., suburbs that made it into the Top Ten were Arlington County, Va., which finished sixth with a median household income of $107,143; and Howard County, Md., which finished seventh with a median household income of $106,871.

The only two non-Washington, D.C., suburbs to make it into the top seven were Los Alamos County, N.M., which had the fourth highest median household income ($108,477) and Douglas County, Colo., which had the fifth highest median household income ($107,250.)



Also in the Top Ten were Hunterdon County, N.J, which placed eighth with a median household income of $103,876; San Mateo County, Calif., which placed ninth with a median household income of $100,806; and Morris County, N.J., which placed tenth with a median household income of $100,511.

Counties in the Virginia suburbs outside of Washington, D.C., have dominated the top of the Census Bureau’s list of wealthiest counties for years.

In 2013, Loudoun was Number 1, Falls Church was Number 2, Fairfax was Number 4 and Howard was Number 5. That year, Los Alamos County, New Mexico, at Number 3, was the only non-D.C. suburb to make it into the Top Five.

In 2012 the same five counties made the Top Five. However, that year, Falls Church was Number 1, Loudoun was Number 2, Los Alamos was Number 3, Howard was Number 4 and Fairfax was Number 5.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/tere...nia-suburbs-dc