The Import Certificate Proposal

[Supposn]

I’m a proponent of a proposed unilateral policy for global trade that described within the Wikipedia article “Import Certificates”; a transcript of that site also appear in the Cross fire’s locked thread “Import Certificates”.
Refer to
viewtopic.php?f=48&t=5637
or to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Import_certificates

The proposal’s unilateral trade policy that is self funded and substantially market rather than government driven.
Within this thread will attempt to respond to any posts specifically addressing the Import Certificate concept as now described in those referred web sites.

Respectfully, Supposn

[Supposn]

[Supposn]

I read comments of Trump saying one thing and doing another; his saying the Chinese “are stealing our jobs" and "eating our lunch", yet he has his companies’ shirts and ties produced in China. I’m not among those considering Donald Trump as a suitable United States presidential candidate.
However, I do not fault people and enterprises for legally acting in manners they consider to be to their own best interests and it’s unreasonable to expect they’ll never illegally attempt to do so.

Currently global wage rates and USA’s laws and regulations governing our global trade leave low-wage nations goods’ production cost at advantage for large proportions of differing products. USA's production cost disadvantages are reflected by lesser sales volumes of our products within and beyond USA’s domestic market places.

We cannot expect USA individuals and enterprises to generally behave altruistically but it may be feasible to modify USA laws regulations in manners that will converge the best immediate and long term interests of USA’s consumers with what’s to the best advantages for our nation’s economic and social conditions.
USA’s consumers determine sales volumes of USA goods within our domestic markets. USA’s production of goods are determined by our sales of those goods; they are in aggregate primarily sold within our domestic markets and additional production volumes reduce the products’ per unit overhead costs.

I am not absolutely opposed to USA disregarding any of our previous international agreements, but certainly there would be national and international consequences if we should do so.
Is the Import Certificate proposal contrary to our existing international agreements? If so, can we feasibly introduce accommodations for Import Certificates within such agreement(s) or (as a last resort) can we feasibly resign from such agreement(s)?

If we cannot modify or resign from such agreement(s), would the economic and political repercussions of USA disregarding our previous commitments be so great as to not be net compensated by benefits due to USA adopting the Import Certificate proposal?
I suppose that's dependent upon the extent of net detriments that would be due to our continuing our participation and the benefits due to our resigning from such agreement(s).

Respectfully, Supposn

[Supposn]

Prior USA Trade Agreements would not interfere with USA adopting the Import Certificate Proposal.

USA has no trade treaties and I would suppose that if all of USA’s international agreements do not have a termination date or a procedure for their amendment or termination, something as comparatively impermanent as trade agreements would all have such provisions.

Without prejudice a nation can provide 6 months notice of their intention to withdraw from continued participation within such an agreement.
It’s certainly feasible for the USA to negotiate accommodation for our adopting the Import certificate proposal as our nation’s global trade policy. It’s unreasonable to assume that we could not succeed to achieve such accommodations but if such a highly unlikely and illogical situation should occur, the USA as a last resort would simply resign from such an agreement.

Respectfully, Supposn
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Excerpted from
https://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/lega ... rticleXXXI

Article XXX: Amendments
1. Except where provision for modification is made elsewhere in this Agreement, amendments to the provisions of Part I of this Agreement or the provisions of Article XXIX or of this Article shall become effective upon acceptance by all the contracting parties, and other amendments to this Agreement shall become effective, in respect of those contracting parties which accept them, upon acceptance by two-thirds of the contracting parties and thereafter for each other contracting party upon acceptance by it.
…
Article XXXI: Withdrawal
1. Without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph 12 of Article XVIII, of Article XXIII or of paragraph 2 of Article XXX, any contracting party may withdraw from this Agreement, or may separately withdraw on behalf of any of the separate customs territories for which it has international responsibility and which at the time possesses full autonomy in the conduct of its external commercial relations and of the other matters provided for in this Agreement. The withdrawal shall take effect upon the expiration of six months from the day on which written notice of withdrawal is received by the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

[spacemonkey]

We need to start making the stuff we use here again. All the rest is just fluff.

[Supposn]

I’m a proponent of USA adopting the substantially globally market driven trade policy as described in the Wikipedia article “Import Certificates” in order to better support USA’s gross domestic product, numbers of jobs and those jobs’ purchasing powers. This proposal would almost entirely or entirely eliminate USA’s trade deficits of goods.

The policy would not be detrimental to our nation’s GDP and would highly likely contribute to its increase. Trade surpluses contribute and trade deficits are "drags" upon their nation's GDP.

I’m in agreement with these comments excepted from Krugman’s NY Times opinion.
Respectfully, Supposn
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/opini ... .html?_r=0 :
Donald Trump gave a speech on economic policy last week. Just about every factual assertion he made was wrong, but I’m not going to do a line-by-line critique. What I want to do, instead, is talk about the general thrust: the candidate’s claim to be on the side of American workers. …
…About globalization: There’s no question that rising imports, especially from China, have reduced the number of manufacturing jobs in America. One widely-cited paper estimates that China’s rise reduced U.S. manufacturing employment by around one million between 1999 and 2011.
But America is a big place, and total employment exceeds 140 million. Shifting two million workers back into manufacturing would raise that sector’s share of employment back from around 10 percent to around 11.5 percent. To get some perspective: in 1979, on the eve of the great surge in inequality, manufacturing accounted for more than 20 percent of employment. In the 1960s it was more than 25 percent. I’m not sure when, exactly, Mr. Trump thinks America was great, but Trumponomics wouldn’t come close to bringing the old days back.

In any case, falling manufacturing employment is only one factor in the decline of the middle class. As Mr. Mishel says, there have been “many other intentional policies” driving wages down even as top incomes soar: union-bashing, the failure to raise the minimum wage with inflation, austerity, financial deregulation, the tax-cut obsession.
And Mr. Trump buys fully into the ideology that has driven these wage-destroying policies.

[Supposn]

I consider the USA’s lack of respect resources dedication for vocational education and training and updating, our “right to work” and other laws and regulations to degrade undermine labor, our trade deficit of goods and our failure to retain and advance the federal minimum wage rate’s purchasing power as among the most significant causes of the third highest fifth of USA’s full-time workers incomes’ lagging purchasing powers.

This is reflected by the much less than robust growth of USA’s median wage’s purchasing power.

Any proportional net improvements of USA’s education and training is reflected by proportionally no less net improvements of our social and economic wellbeing.

Increasing our federal minimum wage rate has always been accomplished gradually and has always been to our nation’s net benefit. I suppose an excessive or sudden increase of the minimum wage rate could be detrimental but no nation has ever experienced such an excess or sudden increase of their minimum wage rate. Pegging the minimum rate to the cost-price index number assures that the U.S. Congress will not again gradually deny employees any portion of what gains they received.

I’m of course a proponent of the trade policy described in Wikipedia’s “Import Certificates” article. Federal net expenditures due to the unilateral Import Certificate policy are entirely funded by USA purchasers of foreign goods.
The policy increases the prices of foreign goods to USA’s purchasers and reduces the prices of USA goods to foreign purchasers.
We all benefit from cheaper imported products but they do not compensate for USA’s chronic annual trade deficits’ net detriments to our economy.

Refer to Wikipedia’s “Import Certificates”
Respectfully, Supposn

[Supposn]

John Galt cannot accept the fact that trade deficits are a drag upon their nation’s GDP.
Although:
The expenditure method is the most common method employed by the world’s economic and statistical communities for calculating GDP;
is the method that was employed in every official U.S. federal mention of GDP; all other creditable methods for calculating GDP reflect their nation’s balances of trade and consequentially produce similar result as those due to the expenditure method which treats trade deficits as a negative trade balances which decrease their nation’s calculated GDP;
John Galt cannot accept the fact that trade deficits are a drag upon their nation’s GDP.

John argues that historical statistics indicate an inverse relationship between trade deficits and their nations’ GDPs.
But no one has ever claimed that balance of trade is the entire determiner of their nation’s GDP; it only one of GDP’s components.
There is no definite rule regarding the proportion of a domestic or imported products sold within those markets but the nations’ domestic market’s aggregate volumes of sales are expected to increase or decline in tandem with their nations’ GDPs.
John Galt’s great reliance on statistical proofs are useless if we cannot agree upon the interpretation of those statistics; (we cannot agree upon which is cause or effect).

John is among those that believe the indirect consequences of a nation’s trade deficits is to increase foreign investment into that nation. I would suppose that a superior national economy attracts more investment and the nation with the greater GDP per capita to some extent enjoys a superior economy.
Why would John believe that the benefits of more investments are greater if they are proportionally more derived from foreign sources?

I recalled all of this after reading the following paragraph.
Respectfully, Supposn
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Excerpted from “Put Globalization to Work for Democracies” by Dani Rodrik, which was published within NY time’s September 17, 2016 Sunday Review.

The new model of globalization stood priorities on their head, effectively putting democracy to work for the global economy, instead of the other way around. The elimination of barriers to trade and finance became an end in itself, rather than a means toward more fundamental economic and social goals. Societies were asked to subject domestic economies to the whims of global financial markets; sign investment treaties that created special rights for foreign companies; and reduce corporate and top income taxes to attract footloose corporations.

[spacemonkey]

Even a global market is finite. On an up perpetual growth is an illusion. But its the story feed to the peasants to justify todays glutton pig greed.

[Supposn]

I did not vote for Donald Trump in 20016 and I’m very much unlikely to do so in 20020; BUT if during his administration, he signs and enacts an “Import Certificate” policy as described in Wikipedia’s article entitled “Import Certificates” or he strives to have such a bill passed and runs on a platform to sign such a bill, it’s extremely likely I’d vote for President Donald Trump in 2020.

That bill would effectively eliminate USA’s annual trade deficits of goods, and more than otherwise increase our GDP, numbers of jobs and median wage. Rather than being a net source of tax revenue, the policy behaves as an indirect but effective subsidy of prices to foreign purchasers of USA exported goods.
All the trade policy’s net direct costs are passed on to USA purchasers of imported goods. The substantially market (rather than entirely government) driven trade policy could not halt the importation of any item for which there’s an effective demand among USA consumers of goods.

Respectfully, Supposn