Protectionism Impact D
Current collaboration solves protectionism – US/Chinese initiatives
Xinhua, 6/9/13. Xinhuanet “Xi, Obama reaffirm opposition to trade protectionism.”
http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90883/8279690.html – clawan
United States, June 8 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping and his U.S. counterpart Barack Obama on
Saturday reaffirmed their commitment to trade and investment liberalization, and opposition to trade
protectionism, said Chinese State Councilor Yang Jiechi. During their second meeting at Sunnylands estate, California, the two
leaders devoted much of their talks to economic ties, which they agreed have vast space and huge potential for further
growth, Yang told reporters. The two sides also agreed to maintain coordination and cooperation under the
frameworks like the Group of 20, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, improve global economic governance, and
jointly promote the strong, sustainable and balanced growth of global economy. They vowed to exert the
functions of existing mechanisms such as the China-U.S. Strategic and Economic Dialogue, China-U.S. Joint Commission on Commerce and
Trade, and the China-U.S. Governors Forum to enhance policy coordination and pragmatic cooperation. Both sides hailed the recently-held 9th
round of negotiations on a bilateral investment accord and agreed to create fair, transparent and stable policy frameworks for mutual
investment. The Chinese side hopes that Washington will provide a fair environment for Chinese enterprises investing in the United States.
They also agreed to expand trade and economic ties at local levels. On
trade frictions, both leaders agreed that dialogue
and cooperation should serve as the way to handle such issues.
Alt causes to protectionism and impact empirically denied – global protectionist
policies are growing more rampant
Lowrey, ’12. Annie Lowrey is a reporter in the Washington bureau of The New York Times. She
previously worked for Slate, Foreign Policy, and The New Yorker. Ms. Lowrey is a graduate of Harvard
University. New York Times. June 22, 2012. “An Increase in Barriers to Trade Is Reported.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/23/business/global/rise-in-trade-protectionism-is-noted-by-thewto.html?_r=0 – clawan
Argentina tweaked import regulations on bottle caps and water balloons. India banned exports of cotton. South
Africa instituted a tariff on artificial turf. Those recent policy changes sound minute. But they, and scores more like them,
have stoked fears about trade protectionism rising as the global economy cools. The World Trade Organization
and other independent analysts are sounding the alarm. In a report released at the end of April, the W.T.O. said that since midOctober the Group of 20 economies — the world’s biggest, which account for a vast majority of the world’s economic
output and trade — had added 124 new restrictive measures affecting about 1 percent of world imports.
Global Trade Alert, a respected independent survey, titled a June update on trade protections “Debacle.” It bumped up its estimate
of the number of protectionist measures enacted in 2010 and 2011, by 36 percent, and warned that
countries had many more coming. The European Union also issued a report finding a “staggering
increase in protectionism” in recent months. Group of 20 members “need to seriously step up their efforts to fight
protectionism,” Karel De Gucht, the European Union trade commissioner, said in a statement. “It sends the wrong signal to global trading
partners, it sends the wrong signal to investors and it sends the wrong signal to the business community.” The wave of protectionism comes as
growth has slowed or stalled in nearly every region of the world. Trade experts say that governments — particularly in developing and
emerging economies that rely heavily on exports to fuel their growth — have felt pressure to protect their domestic industries and started
inhibiting foreign competition to compensate. “Governments are facing particularly difficult economic conditions domestically,” the World
Trade Organization, based in Geneva, said in its report. “They must resist the temptation to move toward more nationalistic and inward-looking
policies. This kind of policy will not solve their problems and they risk generating tit-for-tat reactions by their trading partners.” Rising tensions
over trade flared on Friday, when the United States sharply criticized Argentina and Indonesia for enacting new import restrictions. “Our
question for Argentina again today is: When will the government put an end to the nontransparent and restrictive measures and practices that
have been the source of such longstanding irritation and growing frustration?” said an American attaché at the W.T.O., Rachel Bae, according to
a Reuters report. In light of the creeping protectionism and the testier global climate, trade became a prominent topic at the Group of 20
leaders summit meeting in Los Cabos, Mexico, this week. The Group of 20 countries upheld their promise not to protect their own businesses
by restricting trade — the so-called standstill clause. But talks over how long to extend the pledge were tense. Some countries wanted the
pledge to expire at the end of 2013. The negotiators representing the Group of 20 countries failed to work out a deal, and the presidents and
prime ministers had to step in to reach an agreement to extend the pledge through 2014. Analysts argue that the countries in the Group
of
20 are already breaking their pledge by enacting new measures.
No impact to protectionism – the aff is just fear-mongering and ignores real-world
economic nuances
Hertz, ’09. Professor Noreena Hertz is an English economist, author and campaigner. Professor of
Globalisation, Sustainability and Finance at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University[3]
and the Duisenberg School of Finance. April 02, 2009. “Is Protectionism Really All that Bad?” Spiegel
Online International. http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/opinion-is-protectionism-really-allthat-bad-a-617036.html – clawan
Banks have been nationalized, manager bonuses limited and huge public debts accumulated. Indeed, about the only element of recent
economic thought that remains taboo is blind faith in free trade. That might be a mistake. The mood is sombre. They know
that they are facing the greatest global economic crisis ever. They acknowledge that the crisis was man-made: the outcome of extreme-risk
taking, a shameful lack of oversight, and a complacent blindness to the downside of untrammelled free market economics. They are nervously
conscious that decisions will have to be made without reference to the very tools and theories that they have relied on for the past 30 years.
ANZEIGE Free trade has become an untouchable tenet of the global economy. REUTERS Free trade has become an untouchable tenet of the
global economy. These leaders are in uncharted waters. Waters that churn and spew out conventional wisdoms, economic laws and long
accepted axioms at breakneck speed as one-by-one they prove themselves ill-suited for these times. The absolutism of the key tenets of neoliberalism: privatisation, deregulation, balanced budgets have all been rejected by all but the most dogmatic. Apart from one that is: the
primacy of free trade. Its status is basically sacrosanct. While banks are being nationalized, bonuses recalled, and trillions of dollars of debt
racked up, while pretty much every other concept, belief or ideal is being interrogated, contorted or just set aside, "Free trade is good"
continues to be presented as a totemic truth, ring-fenced from debate or interrogation. Any questioning of this axiom is not even on the G-20's
agenda. In fact the
Free Trade brigade, which encompasses most mainstream politicians, business leaders, and thinkers -- outside of
France that is -- seems to be on evangelical overdrive. "The solution to the crisis is more free trade," says Brazilian President Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva. China's Commerce Minister Chen Deming announces that Beijing is "firmly opposed to trade protectionism," a sentiment
often echoed by Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, while British Prime Minister Gordon Brown expressly warns against abandoning "the
gospel of free trade." "The gospel of free trade." What an extraordinary thing to say. Surely what the last few months have taught us is that
there is no economic or financial principle that we should not be challenging, interrogating, questioning. Moreover their
dogmatism
smacks of duplicity. Brown's anti-protectionist stance can hardly be reconciled with his "British jobs for British Workers" battle-cry. And
it's not just Brown, a new World Bank report states that 17 of the G-20 countries have in recent months set up
protectionist barriers. So we have countries publicly preaching free trade, but on the sly making protectionist moves. Such
dissemblance creates two problems. It fosters distrust between nations -- at a time at which without trust there's almost no chance that a
collective solution to the crisis will be reached. And, it also sends out a dangerous message to domestic electorates that their leaders are
unwilling to embrace the intellectual honesty and flexibility that is needed right now to question absolutely everything they have held dear in
economic policy over the last three decades, no caveats. We urgently need a frank, honest and grown-up discussion about the final frontier of
neo-liberalism -- free trade. And we're not getting one. Instead we get scaremongering. "Remember the 1930s; don't take us back there." This
isn't even an accurate representation of the past. Leading
economic historians now explain the collapse of world
trade in the 1930s not as a result of protectionism, but because of shrinking demand and a lack of
trade credits. We also continue to be presented with a false dichotomy -- free trade versus
protectionism. What we actually need is a nuanced analysis of where on the free trade/protectionism
scale individual nations need and want to be positioned, and what the implications of that would be. The ability to openly have this discussion is
particularly vital at a time when countries are under huge pressure from their electorates to protect jobs and businesses, and create compelling
narratives about their own recovery. This is especially important given that, when used specifically and for a limited time, as Sweden and Japan
did in the aftermath of the 1970s oil shocks, protectionism
can be the lifeline a struggling country needs to survive.
It can provide the breathing space an economy needs to retrench and retool its industries and
workers. I'm not advocating trade warfare, nor am I proposing that powerful countries be allowed to erect trade barriers with impunity. It's
just that I don't think protectionism should be seen as a non-acceptable taboo. Instead we should see protectionism as a tool in
nations' armouries that can be deployed to help address their local economic freefall, but is also capable of
creating far-reaching collateral damage. Its use therefore needs to be sanctioned by the global community, practiced with caution, and within
guidelines. Perhaps there is a role here for the WTO to play, not in enforcing the letter of the free trade law, but in adjudicating as to what is
fair and right for now.
A2: Dodd-Frank Addon
Small businesses aren’t key to the economy and long-term structural issues
overwhelm Dodd Frank impact
Bernstein, ’11. Jared Bernstein is a Senior Fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. From
2009 to 2011, Bernstein was the Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Joseph Biden
in the Obama Administration. October 23, 2011. “Small Isn’t Always Beautiful” NYTimes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/opinion/small-businesses-arent-key-to-the-economicrecovery.html?_r=0 – clawan
Actually, no. In what may be the most misunderstood fact about the job market, although most companies are small — according
to 2008 census data, 61 percent are small businesses with fewer than four workers — more than two-thirds of the American work force is
employed by companies with more than 100 workers. You can tweak the definitions, but even if you define “small” as fewer than 500 people
(as the federal government does, basically), you
still find that half the work force is employed by large businesses.
percent of total compensation is paid out by companies of 500
It’s even more stunning when it comes to payrolls: 57
or more employees, with most of that coming from the largest, those with at least 10,000 employees. And new research by the
Treasury Department finds that small businesses — defined as those with income between $10,000 and $10 million, or about 99 percent of all
businesses — account for just 17 percent of business income, and only 23 percent of them pay any wages at all. But
don’t small
businesses at least fuel job growth? Sort of. It’s not small businesses that matter, but new businesses,
which by definition create new jobs. Real job creation, though, doesn’t kick in until those small
businesses survive and grow into larger operations. In fact, according to path-breaking work by the economist John C.
Haltiwanger and his colleagues, once they accounted for the outsize contributions by new and young companies, they found “no
systematic relationship” between net job growth and company size. It’s unlikely such findings will change
politicians’ speeches trumpeting small businesses. But if we want to get our job market back on track, they should inform our policy
thinking. For example, it’s not only the case that start-ups are of particular importance to robust job growth. They’ve been creating fewer
jobs over the last decade. Employment at start-ups fell by almost half, and those losses predated the
“Great Recession” — probably one reason job growth was so lackluster over the last decade’s expansion. Economists do not yet
have a good answer as to why start-ups and surviving young companies are creating fewer jobs, but it
may have something to do with “allocative inefficiency.” Too many resources flowed to financial
engineering in the last decade, and too few went to R & D and innovation outside of the financial sector. The decline of
American manufacturing plays a role here as well, as the sector has historically accounted for 70 percent of job-creating private-sector R & D,
often in partnership with start-ups and small suppliers.
Dodd-Frank good for the economy – no negative effect on small business and repeal
would collapse business confidence
WP, ’11. Washington Post. Christopher J. Dodd , a Democratic former senator from Connecticut,
served as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee from 2007 to 2010. “Five myths about DoddFrank.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-the-dodd-frank-financialregulations/2011/10/19/gIQAtq7j4L_story.html – clawan
After a worldwide financial meltdown — and a $700 billion taxpayer-funded bailout — the need for common-sense financial reforms was clear.
But now, even
though the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 (known as Dodd-Frank, after Rep. Barney Frank
only beginning to take effect, critics are launching false attacks against the law in an
effort to undermine it. Whether they are intentionally misleading or just misguided, they are wrong about the law’s purpose and
impact 1. Dodd-Frank is deepening the economic slowdown. Critics who charge that the law is aggravating the
recession have forgotten where our economic woes came from in the first place. The 2008 financial crisis was
and me, its sponsors) is
devastating: Banks stopped lending to one another, the credit market froze, and our largest financial institutions neared collapse. Had DoddFrank been in place, the damage could have been contained. Instead, the financial crisis sparked a recession, cost Americans millions of jobs
and trillions of dollars in savings, forced small businesses to close and drove homeowners into foreclosure. Today, other challenges
complicate our recovery: Our housing market is slumping, a gaping budget deficit threatens America’s
fiscal future, and a sovereign debt crisis hangs over the world. But Dodd-Frank didn’t create these
challenges. Meanwhile, even though only 10 percent of Dodd-Frank’s provisions have been implemented
so far, critics claim that the law perpetuates “job-killing uncertainty.” In fact, it was the uncertainty
inherent in a non-transparent and reckless financial system that made Dodd-Frank necessary in the
first place. The truth is that this catastrophe was years in the making — caused by regulatory neglect and
Wall Street gambling. We can’t expect to rebuild our prosperity overnight, but we can’t rebuild it at all if we let false political talking
points undermine our efforts to restore confidence in our financial system. 2. Dodd-Frank hurts small businesses and community banks.
.The law is squarely aimed at better regulating the largest and most complex Wall Street firms — the ones that
were most responsible for the crisis and still present the most risk. Small community banks were victims of the crisis,
with hundreds failing as a result of the big banks’ risky gambles. That’s why they came to Congress and asked us to modernize and strengthen
financial regulations, leveling the playing field against the shadow banking industry — entities such as payday lenders and mortgage brokers
that had been created to avoid regulation. In one of the recent GOP debates, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney
said that
Dodd-Frank is “a killer for the small banks.” In fact, community banks, which were not responsible for the crisis, will pay lower
premiums for deposit insurance and continue to work with their existing regulators. And in a nation with more than 6,000 banks, the bulk
of the bill’s new regulations apply only to a few dozen of the largest ones, each holding more than $50 billion in
assets. Many community banks are concerned that regulators such as the FDIC have become overzealous. But that is a product of the post-crisis
environment and not a result of this law, which, by design, will help community banks continue to serve as a lifeline to small businesses. 3.
Dodd-Frank failed to truly reform Wall Street. The protests about the law emanating from Wall Street tell you all you need to know about this
claim. Dodd-Frank fundamentally transformed our financial system. It requires banks to keep more capital on hand as a buffer against bad
loans. It establishes a process for unwinding firms if they fail — and prohibits the Federal Reserve from bailing them out. It brings more
transparency and accountability to the $600 trillionderivatives market. It shuts down ineffective regulators and insists that the remaining ones
share information to expose the next financial trouble spots. And it finally establishes a single agency whose mission is to protect consumers.
This all adds up to a systematic overhaul of a regulatory structure that hadn’t been sufficiently updated since the 1930s. Much still needs to be
done to ensure that the law succeeds: Regulators must implement reforms aggressively, and Congress must continue to provide vigorous
oversight. But Dodd-Frank is a comprehensive solution to a comprehensive problem. 4. Congress didn’t fix Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. There
are two issues to address here: the financial problems at Fannie and Freddie, and the future of mortgage finance in America. Congress
addressed the first — not with Dodd-Frank, but before the crisis, when the George W. Bush administration asked us to take on the issue. I
worked with Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and with Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) to pass bipartisan legislation creating a regulator with real
teeth. That law gave the government the authority to put Fannie and Freddie into conservatorship, where they remain while Congress
determines how to finance mortgages in the future. Meanwhile, in Dodd-Frank, we took aim at the riskiest practices in the housing market.
Unscrupulous lenders can no longer make loans to people who they know can’t pay them back. Brokers can’t steer borrowers to higher-rate
loans in exchange for compensation from lenders. And those who sell risky securities must maintain a financial stake in their success. The
problems in our housing market — as well as the debate over the future roles of Fannie and Freddie — remain complex and contentious, but
they have hardly been ignored. 5. It’s time to repeal Dodd-Frank. Imagine legislation that authorizes regulators to prop up failing institutions;
makes consumer protection an afterthought once again and allows predatory lenders and other unscrupulous brokers to take advantage of
vulnerable Americans; lets Wall Street banks make risky bets backed by taxpayer money; allows hedge funds to trade derivatives in secret; and
prevents regulators from getting the information they need to stop another meltdown before it happens. That’s what repealing Dodd-Frank
would do. Whether
or not you agree with the law’s provisions, repealing it would return us to a time in
which nobody — not consumers, not regulators, not even other banks — knew what the Wall Street gamblers were
doing until it was too late. It would destroy confidence in our markets and faith in our financial
system, certainly hindering our recovery. It would again leave Americans at the mercy of those who
have already ripped off too many families and businesses. In short, repealing Dodd-Frank would invite
disaster, putting working families, American businesses and the global economy at risk of an even worse meltdown.