Trade often becomes the scapegoat, or vessel, into which people pour their legitimate economic concerns,” explained Ambassador Michael Froman, DPhil.
The former U.S. trade representative to the Office of U.S. Trade in the Obama administration was the guest for “The Geopolitical Stakes of American Trade Policy and the Impact on U.S. National Security,” the February 2018 Marxe Issues Public Policy Breakfast. Joining him were Marxe School faculty Carla Anne Robbins, PhD; Joselyn Muhleisen (’07); and Marxe Dean David Birdsell, PhD.
The panel’s wide-ranging discussion included multilateral, bilateral, and subnational trade activity; protectionism; “great-power competition”; the current perception of the U.S. abroad; and how to communicate trade policies and their impacts to U.S. voters. Of the latter, Froman cautioned against relying on statistics alone to advocate for trade, instead recommending connecting with the public via real-world scenarios.
As an example, he noted that without trade, an iPhone would “cost $3,000 and be out of the reach of the single mother who uses her phone when she’s running between jobs to FaceTime with her kids. She is dependent on trade; her kids are dependent on trade.”
Scenarios aside, one statistic Froman put forward should surely make U.S. voters take notice: “It has been estimated that trade agreements contribute about $14,000 to
the average American family’s income.”
– Diane Harrigan