Jobs and Trade

   The GOP candidate for President, the America Firsters, and isolationists all want to build walls, "renegotiate" trade treaties and tear up existing partnerships like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and other treaties in the name of "winning."
   But that means someone else must lose. Basic economics, as well as practical business principles, teach that fair trade means both sides gain.
   Nevertheless, the call is out there and is repeated often that America is losing jobs, the economy is a wreck and the highly touted "free trade" agreements actually demolish American jobs.
   However, here's a study from the U.S. Department of Commerce that shows a 22 percent increase in American jobs at companies involved in exporting since 2009.
   Exports to current free trade partners supported more than 3 million jobs in 2015, the agency said. Mexico and Canada, the nation's two NAFTA partners, alone accounted for nearly one out of four American jobs supported by exports.
   A new report by the Commerce Department detailed the 11.5 million export-related jobs in America. Since 2009, the total number of jobs involved in exporting grew by nearly 1.9 million, the agency said.
   Exports of goods and services to the European Union, NAFTA partners, China and Japan supported 6.9 million jobs, or 60 percent of all export related  jobs, the report said. More than half those jobs involved exports to trade partners in the Asia and Pacific region, according to the study.
   American exports to the rest of the world have "a positive impact on employment here at home," the department said.
   
   Isolating the nation from international trade will not bring an increase in employment for American workers, but more likely will mean a drop.
   Separately, studies have shown that immigration has little effect on overall employment for native-born workers. There are, of course, economic cycles that drag down prosperity and employment, but the jobless rate in America remains below 5 percent, and the output of goods and services has been steadily rising.
   So who ya gonna believe, impartial numbers or a ranting politician?