Why Kushner was right to "beg" Trudeau to "talk some sense" into Trump re: NAFTA

[usmbguest5318]

In another thread, it's been argued that Jared Kushner and his wife should be removed from the "circle of power" because:

1. Kushner and his wife have "never gotten their hands dirty working a real job."
2. "Millions of Americans and thousands of communities have been adversely affected due to piss poor trade deals."
   
3. "What is good for Wall Street is not always good for Main Street."

I suppose that implicit somewhere in there is the assertion (premise) that Kushner is inept -- how, in that particular argument, one manages to leave implied such a critical premise is beyond me, but whatever... -- and that the three assertions above prove that so; thus Kusher should no longer advise his father.

Let's look at the argument presented to support the conclusion that Kushner should be removed from the "circle of power." Before doing so, however, I remind readers that an argument is sound only if the argument itself is valid and the premises (and inferences) on which it relies are all true.

Premise #1:

Kushner and his wife have "never gotten their hands dirty working a real job.

• "Never gotten their hands dirty" -- How does the member know this claim is true? How do we readers know this premise is true? It is a premise that, notwithstanding the absoluteness of "never" and its attendant implausibility in such a statement, can be objectively established as true or false, yet the member provided no evidence to support this interim assertion s/he presents as part of a larger assertion/premise. One may believe whatever one wants about the premise's veracity, but absent specific evidence, one cannot know whether it's true.
• Never worked a "real job" -- It appears that Kushner has had several "real jobs," and ones that pay well, no less. We know his wife has had at least one "real job;" there wouldn't have been all the hoopla about Nordstrom dropping her products were her job as the head of the business producing them not real. And yet that job isn't the only real one she's had.
  
  What jobs aren't "real jobs?" The ones that are illegal to perform for compensation.

Because both Kushner and his wife have held "real jobs," this premise is false, no matter how "dirty" their hands became performing them.
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From "square one," the argument is both invalid and unsound. ....But's let's look at the remaining premises.

Premise #2:

Millions of Americans and thousands of communities have been adversely affected due to piss poor trade deals.

• Trade deals have been piss poor -- This is an interim assertion found within an assertion. It is, at best, debatable, yet the OP-er who makes this claim leaves it utterly unsupported. What makes a trade deal "piss poor?" The member doesn't define what it means to him, and there's no accepted definition of that term.
  
  To me, a "piss poor" trade deal is one that, in the aggregate (total economic gains minus total economic costs), does not yield positive economic cost-benefit outcomes. Can one verily and credibly say that of NAFTA (the specific trade deal Kushner asked Trudeau to discuss with Trump) and with regard to the U.S No.
  • Estimates of the Trade and Welfare E§ects of NAFTA -- "We find that Mexico's welfare increases by 1.31%, U.S.'s welfare increases by 0.08%, and Canada's welfare declines by 0.06%. We find that intra-bloc trade increases by 118% for Mexico, 11% for Canada and 41% for the U.S."
    
  • The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) -- "The overall net effect of NAFTA on the U.S. economy has been relatively small, primarily because total trade with both Mexico and Canada was equal to less than 5% of U.S. GDP."
    
  • Econometric Estimates of the Effects of NAFTA: A Review of the Literature (2013)
  • The Benefits of Free Trade to U.S. Consumers -- The increased trade has had a cumulative aggregate benefit to American consumers of approximately $2.3 trillion over 1992-2002, or between $20,000 and $22,000 per household in 2002 dollars. In 2002 alone, the inflation-adjusted gains from trade to U.S. consumers were almost six percent of 2002 U.S. household real median income ($42,409), or approximately $2,500 per household. Focusing only on the increase in trade from 1992 to 2002, the inflation-adjusted benefits to consumers from freer trade during this period ranged from $1,229 to $2,080 per household, in 2002 dollars.
• Millions have been adversely affected by trade deals -- There is without question some truth to this claim, but the member doesn't credibly quantify them, or quantify them at all. Along with failing -- that of making an unsubstantiated assertion -- in the argument, there are others.
  • The fact of the matter is that the impacts -- good and bad -- of trade deals are unequally distributed across an economy. They are quite like the impacts of a natural disaster in that they can be devastating to a given area and have no material impact on many others. The problem, however, is that in examining and focusing only marginal changes in free trade, one necessarily ignores all the free trade that has happened up to that point, and that has happened elsewhere in the economy.
    
    For example, many point to Autor, Dorn, and Hanson’s excellent study of the effect of trade with China on local economies as evidence that trade is clearly creating some losers. Such an analysis/conclusion depends entirely on the counterfactual. Even the local communities harmed by the increase in trade with China are net beneficiaries of free trade overall. To see this, consider three counterfactuals:
    • Counterfactual #1 is we somehow freeze trade with China at 1990 levels, when Autor, Dorn, and Hanson’s investigation starts. How is this done? Through strict import quotas or high tariffs? What are the deadweight losses associated with this, and what is China’s response? Presumably they would make a similar move, and it seems likely this kind of behavior would set off a global trade war. Tell me: would those communities that were subsequently made worse off by more trade with China be better off if we started a global trade war?
    • Instead, consider Counterfactual #2 where we shut down all trade in 1990 and went to full autarky. After all, if our claim is that the local economies are hurt by trade then turn trade off entirely should benefit them. But you’d be hard pressed to find an economist who thinks the move to full autarky would make anyone better off on net. Which means we agree that even these harmed communities are still net beneficiaries of free trade.
      
    • Of course, the full impacts of free trade accumulate over time as countries specialize further. So to understand free trade’s true net effect you’d have to examine Counterfactual #3, which would examine the effects of going back in time and having the U.S. institute autarky in full way back in the 1700s and staying there forever. Not even the most anti-trade economist in the world would claim that this would make any part of the U.S. better off today.

So of the three counterfactuals of stopping free trade, only in one -the shutdown of trade with China in 1990- do we have the possibility that these communities made of worse in Autor/Dorn/Hanson would see their situation improved.

Free trade criticisms (premises) based on there being losers in the aftermath of the deal smacks of a free market critic griping about workers becoming worse off when competition puts a company out of business. Yes, the free market hurt those people on that particular area (margin), but the reason the company exists in the first place, and a large part of the reason the standard of living is where it is, is because of the free market. [See the discussion and referenced study in the next bullet.] Had we decided 100 years ago to try to stop companies from going out of business, then those who lost out from competition today would be way way worse off. Or consider the Luddites. Yes, technological change in the textile industry may have harmed them, but had technological change stopped before previous inventions like crop rotation they would have been far worse off.

Having a generous safety net is a good way to shield people from the waves of economic change that free trade brings. But to try and stop that change would be to protect someone from a force that they have benefitted from immeasurably, and to do harm both on average and to future generations. When people say “free trade creates winners and losers” they are correct only in a narrow sense, far too narrow to credibly justify removing Kushner from the "circle of power."​

• It's been shown that, contrary to populist political rhetoric, the bulk of the benefits from unfettered trade accrue to the lowest income segments of society. Who among us would willfully opt to deny to the poorest among us any advocate who urges the POTUS to reconsider his free trade/NAFTA intentions which, if he were to act upon them, would most adversely affect the poorest among us? Even I, with my general indifference about who wins and loses under capitalism and my staunch preference for positivist economic policy bases, wouldn't.
  • Measuring the Unequal Gains from Trade -- We find that trade typically favors the poor, who concentrate spending in more traded sectors.
    
    [I know many people say they don't like math, so I'm explicitly one not allow oneself to be intimidated by the equations in this paper. As they should be, they are presented for precision and clarity for the benefit of individuals who are of a mind to refute them; however, also as required, the authors also explain them in "everyday" language. Just take the time to read the narratives about them and you'll "get it."]
    
    
    

Understanding the preceding with regard to the nature and extent of truth in premise #2, one sees the limited verity of the claim about millions of losers -- without even having to address whether there are millions more winners -- there is scant basis to deride, lo call for politically ostracizing, Kushner on the basis of his advocacy of free trade in general and, specifically, the NAFTA free trade agreement.

Premise #3

What is good for Wall Street is not always good for Main Street.

Okay, but review my remarks about premise #2. They're every bit as applicable to this premise as it is but a different take on the general idea that free trade deals create losers.
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In light of the above, one sees that not only is the other member's argument grossly flawed, but also one that Kushner was right to "beg" Trudeau to "talk sense into Trump, but he absolutely should not be removed from the "circle of power."

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[Fenton Lum]

Just imagine Hilary won and was dragging family in, oh the banshee cries of the snowflakes. And we'd still have Goldman Sachs running the show.