By Bruce Cochrane.
The National Pork Producers Council says technology, not trade, is responsible for the reduced number of jobs in agriculture and in manufacturing in the U.S.
As the U.S. closes in on its November, 2016 presidential election trade, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement and the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership, has been a key point of discussion.
Nick Giordano, the Vice President and Counsel Global Government Affairs with the National Pork Producers Council, says, despite the anti-free trade rhetoric, trade remains critical to the heath of U.S.
agriculture and the U.S. economy.
Nick Giordano-National Pork Producers Council:
The principle thing you hear is we're losing jobs.
Go back to 1900.
At that point 40 percent of the U.S. work force was engaged in agriculture.
By the year 2000 only 1.9 percent of the work force was employed in agriculture.
If you look at manufacturing, manufacturing employment in the United States peaked in 1979.
That was before the U.S. Canada FTA, before the NAFTA, before all the FTAs.
But today manufacturing output in the United States is the highest it's ever been.
Today more goods are made in the United States than ever before.
Today more goods are being exported than ever before.
Why are we losing these jobs?
It's very simple.
We're losing jobs not due to trade, not due to imports principally.
The overarching reason that any economist worth their salt will tell you why we're losing these jobs is technological innovation.
It's increased productivity due to technology.
Giordano says, without free trade agreements, the U.S. would be exporting less and would have lower employment
Source: Farmscape.