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NOVEMBER 22, 2022
Meyerson on TAP
What Pacific Century?
Our trade with Europe is now outpacing our trade with China
Last month, the axis of American commerce tilted from the West to the
East. By "East," I don't mean China, Asia or, to resurrect a
colonial exoticization, the Orient. I mean our East Coast instead of our
West.
In August and September, The Wall Street Journal reports
<[link removed]>,
the Port of New York/New Jersey was busier than the Port of Los Angeles
for the first time since America's corporate leaders discovered that
employing cheap Chinese labor meant bigger American corporate profits.
It's still too early to judge the implications of this shift. It may
be that when the Chinese lockdowns end, Pacific trade will revert to its
accustomed torrent. It may be that when Europe can tap its own energy
resources, we will no longer be shipping them oceans of liquid natural
gas.
But the rise in cross-Atlantic commerce isn't just a rise in our
exports of fossil fuel. Our imports from the EU and the UK have either
matched or exceeded those from China for most of this year. And the
number of our containers exported to Europe have also soared this
year-and oil and gas don't travel in containers.
With the rising tensions between China and the U.S, this shift could
augur something more profound. If Europe does become our largest, or
just more sizable, trading partner, that could mean the share of our
goods made by significantly cheaper labor would diminish. Indeed, real
compensation levels in Europe's chief exporter, Germany, have
considerably exceeded our own for many years. It would be nice to think
that in the interest of trade harmonization, Europe and the U.S. could
agree on joint labor standards, meaning that those in the U.S. would be
compelled to rise. Our CEOs and conservatives would never permit that,
of course, but it could serve as a nice leftwing talking point.
Even if the China-to-U.S. pipeline slows to a permanent trickle, that
also doesn't mean that the Pacific will be freighter-free. American
corporations are already busily shifting production to factories in
India and Vietnam. Which, in a sense, validates the long-forgotten
Domino Theory, which supporters of our war on Vietnam invoked to argue
that if Vietnam fell to the commies, so would all of Southeast Asia. It
turns out that when the theory is shifted to describe the spread of
participation in the sphere of global capitalism, it actually works
quite well. As China has demonstrated, capitalist economics and Leninist
(trending toward Stalinist) governance can go together very well.
In any event, here's to our European sisters and brothers, and let's
hope that their labor practices and rights can at least inspire ours.
~ HAROLD MEYERSON
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[link removed] How Did
Those UC Grad Students Become Auto Workers?
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The UAW's campus organizing record is far better than its auto factory
record-and it can back up its UC members with a sizable strike fund.
BY HAROLD MEYERSON
Hospital Billing Is a Crime Against American Patients
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A visit to a hospital in Europe is an eye-opener to the many ways
monopolized U.S. hospitals pad their profits with unnecessary costs. BY
ROBERT KUTTNER
Advocates Celebrate End of Trump-Biden Immigration Policy
<[link removed]>
Contrary to Thomas Friedman, Wall Street still makes a killing from
China at the expense of workers. BY RAMENDA CYRUS
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