Speaking at an event hosted by the Pacific Council on International Policy, Kerry portrayed the Trans Pacific Partnership, which would drop trade barriers between participating nations, as especially vital to California’s major industries: trade, entertainment, technology and agriculture. And he criticized those who exploit “fear and anger” among the economically vulnerable — a clear shot at the presidential candidates who have assailed the deal.
The secretary also used his address to press support for the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, a free trade and investment agreement being negotiated between the U.S. and the European Union.
“These trade agreements are at the center of defending our strategic interests, deepening our diplomatic relationships, strengthening our national security, and reinforcing our leadership across the globe,” Kerry said. “The importance, my friends, cannot be overstated.”
All four leading presidential candidates — Republicans Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, and Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders — oppose ratification of the Trans Pacific Partnership, which was signed in February but awaits congressional approval.
Clinton worked on this trade agreement while serving as Obama’s first secretary of state. Back then she described it as the “gold standard” of such deals, but lately she has criticized it for failing to sufficiently safeguard U.S. workers.
Trump and Sanders in particular have made the agreement a major issue in their campaigns. Trump has called it “insane,” and Sanders said, after it was made public in November, that it was “even worse than I thought.”
They have portrayed the agreement, which bonds the United States and 11 other countries in the Americas and Asia, as potentially devastating to American workers. The participating countries — Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the U.S. and Vietnam — compromise nearly 40 percent of the global economy.
Conspicuously absent from that list: China. Obama has framed the trade pact as a way of countering China’s rising influence in the region.
Kerry, returning to the United States after a trip that included stops in Iraq, Afghanistan and Japan, insisted that the agreement “will be a clear win for American workers, American businesses and communities,” and referred tartly to “a tremendous amount of misinformation floating around about the economic impact of TPP.”
“In the 21st century,” he said, “you cannot only sell to yourself and expect to grow and survive, let along compete and thrive.”
Kerry also sought to allay concern that the agreement would weaken U.S. trade ethics, arguing that by deepening commercial connections America would be in a position to rewrite the rules governing the global economy “in accordance with our values and the crucial standards of transparency, accountability and rule of law.”
He noted that each of the accord’s participants would have to keep the promises they make — including upholding consumer, environmental and labor protections — or face tough sanctions for any violation.
“Make no mistake: This is not your parents’ or your grandparents’ trade agreement,” Kerry said. “TTP is the highest-standard trade deal every reached — period.”
Playing to his audience, which included dozens of Los Angeles area business people, Kerry touted the deal’s benefits to California.
The agreement, he said, “establishes strong, balanced rules to protect intellectual property and the 40 million Americans working in creative and digital industries — which I don’t have to tell you is a huge issue for California film studios and Silicon Valley.”
And, he said, the deal would benefit California’s vast agricultural and manufacturing export market. “Three of L.A.’s top five export markets are TPP members — Mexico, Canada and Japan,” he said.
Under the agreement, many of the products shipped from the Port of Los Angeles would confront lower barriers to critical markets, Kerry said.
“That means cotton exports will no longer face a 10 percent tariff in Vietnam; frozen beef exports will no longer face a tariff of nearly 40 percent in Japan; automotive exports will no longer face up to 75 percent tariffs; and almonds, walnuts, and pistachios will no longer face as high as a 30 percent tariff in the region,” he said.
Still, the secretary acknowledged that many Americans feel a sense of anxiety about the trade agreements. For example, some fear businesses might be shuttered as a result of foreign competition and for many “free trade is seen as a proxy for the underlying and disruptive forces reshaping the global economy,” Kerry said.
But he argued, “the primary reason old jobs disappear is technology, not trade, and certainly not trade agreements.” He added: “When machines do more, productivity goes up, and the demand for human labor will shift to other industries.”
The secretary’s message hit home for many of the 250 or so who attended the speech.
Steven Gitlin, vice president of marketing at AeroVironment, Inc., a world leader in small, unmanned aircraft systems and electric vehicle charging technologies, took notes on key points that he found particularly poignant.
“The first is, ‘you can’t build a wall against knowledge,’” Gitlin said. And secondly, “no one can put the genie of globalization back in the bottle.”
“These points are exceptionally important because for many people this whole idea of international trade — it’s complex, it’s foreign and it’s not something they deal with on a day-to-day basis,” said Gitlin, whose company is headquartered in Simi Valley. “For many people this topic can generate anxiety and fear of the unknown. What people need to understand is that globalization is going forward whether we’re a part of it or not.”
Charles Carmona, president of Los Angeles-based Guild Laboratories, Inc., a trader of gems and precious metals around the world, echoed the sentiment.
“I feel badly for the people who are losing their jobs … and that’s certainly something we have to deal with,” Carmona said. “But I agree that we have to move forward.”
©2016 Los Angeles Times Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
