What countries have the freest trade? Hint: the United States is not even in the top 10. Try 19th.

[pampango]

World Economic Forum's 2010 Enabling Trade Index

http://www.weforum.org/pdf/GETR10/Global-Enabling-Trade-Report-2010.pdf

Country........................2010...Score...2009
Singapore........................ 1...... 6.06...... 1
Hong Kong SAR ................2...... 5.70. .....2
Denmark .........................3...... 5.41...... 4
Sweden ...........................4...... 5.41...... 5
Switzerland ......................5....... 5.37..... 3
New Zealand.................... 6....... 5.33.... 11
Norway............................ 7....... 5.32..... 7
Canada............................ 8....... 5.29..... 6
Luxembourg..................... 9....... 5.28.... 13
Netherlands ....................10....... 5.26.... 10
Iceland ............................11...... 5.26.... n/a
Finland............................ 12...... 5.25...... 8
Germany .........................13...... 5.20..... 12
Austria ...........................14....... 5.17...... 9
Australia ........................15....... 5.13..... 14
United Arab Emirates........ 16....... 5.12..... 18
United Kingdom ...............17....... 5.06.... 20
Chile ..............................18....... 5.06.... 19
United States .................19....... 5.03.... 16
France ............................20....... 5.02.... 17

China came in at #48 (2009-#49), Mexico at #64 (#74), and India #84 (#76).

The Bottom Group
Pakistan ........................112....... 3.39... 100
Bangladesh ...................113....... 3.38.... 111
Russian Federation .........114...... 3.37.... 109
Cameroon ......................115........3.35.... 106
Mongolia ........................116....... 3.33.... 113
Mauritania ......................117....... 3.30.... 107
Nepal .............................118........ 3.27.... 110
Algeria ..........................119......... 3.14.... 112
Nigeria .........................120......... 3.05.... 117
Venezuela ....................121.......... 3.04... 119
Zimbabwe ....................122......... 2.98.... 118
Côte d’Ivoire ...............123......... 2.90... 120
Chad ..............................124......... 2.88.... 121
Burundi .........................125......... 2.79.....116

The Enabling Trade Index (ETI) measures the extent to which individual economies have developed institutions, policies, and services facilitating the free flow of goods over borders and to destination.The structure of the Index reflects the main
enablers of trade, breaking them into four overall issue areas, captured in the subindexes:

1. The market access subindex measures the extent to which the policy framework of the country welcomes foreign goods into the economy and enables access to foreign markets for its exporters.
2. The border administration subindex assesses the extent to which the administration at the border facilitates the entry and exit of goods.
3. The transport and communications infrastructure subindex takes into account whether the country has in place the transport and communications infrastructure necessary to facilitate the movement of goods within the economy and across
the border.
4. The business environment subindex looks at the quality of governance as well as at the over-arching regulatory and security environment

[DJ13]

1. The problem isnt that we dont have as much free trade

Its that much of our trade is with countries who dont have as much free trade.

That limits our access to their markets while they get to underprice our own manufacturers.

[pampango]

2. Our trade with Canada and the EU exceeds our trade with China and Mexico.

Canada and almost every European country are higher on the ETI than the US.

Our trade deficit with the EU ($61 billion) is greater than with (Mexico $48 billion). China exports more to the EU ($307 billion) than it does to the US ($296 billion).

In 2009 our imports from those places were as follows:

China - $296 billion
EU - $282 billion
Canada - $226 billion
Mexico - $177 billion

http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/balance/c6021.html

[DJ13]

4. Trade with Canada doesnt hurt our economy

Its the lack of reciprocal market entry in many other countries that hurts.

[Hello_Kitty]

3. Gosh the corporate whores of World Economic Forum is pushing for more "free trade"

What a shock!

:eyes:

[pampango]

5. Not another messenger blast. If you don't care about trade rankings, that's fine.

If you believe that their rankings are suspect or slanted in some way (the US is ranked too high or too low), that's fair game. If you dispute their methodology that is fair game, too. They published no recommended economic policies here, just a ranking (like you often see about different countries' education, health or transportation systems, levels of corruption, etc.).

Perhaps you should be happy that the US went from 16th to 19th in the index from 2009 to 2010. If an organization you trusted produced a ranking (perhaps in reverse order with Burundi #1 and Singapore #125) that showed the same trend for the US, it would be a cause for satisfaction, wouldn't it? We would be heading in a direction that you want - the less open we are to trade the better it is for Americans? Our new ranking could be considered a positive thing (assuming a valid methodology) if you want the US to trade less than it does, whether you agree with the sponsoring organization's goals or not. You should hope that the methodology of this study is indeed valid.

The fact that almost every country that is more progressive than the US is higher than us in the rankings should tell something about the link between trade and progressive policies. When the US health care system is ranked internationally or its education system, transportation system or anything else, we don't usually come out looking very good compared to the progressive countries of the world. In spite of that, if the methodology is valid, the ranking is valid. You may or may not care about the topic, and choose to ignore it, but that is a different matter.

[Hello_Kitty]

7. You still have yet to answer a question I've put to you several times

I'm going to ask again:

Without the threat of protectionism, what leverage do U.S. workers have to bring about the labor rights and social safety net that countries in Europe have?

[pampango]

8. The same way that European workers got labor rights and a social safety net, they demanded

them from their governments, then took to the streets until they got them. Heck, they still strike and take to the streets whenever their governments try to take away labor rights or limit the social safety net. Witness France and the effort of Sarkozy's conservative government to change the pension system. That hasn't changed.

Threats of protectionism had, and has, nothing to do with it. French workers demand it from the French government, German workers from the German government, etc. and there is less threat of protectionism there than here. (The EU is negotiating "free trade" agreements with seemingly everyone.) If the threat of protectionism was essential to improving labor rights and the social safety net, Europe would be in worse shape than we are in those respects since they are more open to trade.

Europeans didn't get their labor rights and social safety net by threatening to squeeze trade from Russia or Japan or Canada until European governments acceded to their demands. They got them by confronting their own governments - Germans vs. Germans, French vs. French, etc.

I know we've discussed the US/Europe comparison many times, but I didn't realize that you had asked that question before. Sorry for not answering it sooner.

[Hello_Kitty]

10. But why should U.S. corporations accede to those demands from American workers

If they know then can offshore, outsource, and insource cheaper labor elsewhere and still have unfettered access to our markets and (what's left of) American consumer dollars?

[pampango]

12. If the Swedes can have high wages and a booming economy in their "welfare state"

despite the competition from other countries that are not as well off as they, so can we. The fear of poor foreigners doesn't seem to stop Europeans from achieving labor rights and a social safety net and would not stop us, if we ever tried it. Rather than confront corporate America the way that Germans, Swedes and the French have confronted their corporations, we turn instead to "there are too many poor people in the world. We need to wall them off." That avoids or postpones dealing with corporate power, but it won't solve the problem.

Maybe it's different for citizens in a country that is so large and abundant in resources. The Swedes, French and others know they are small countries in a big world and have little choice but to find a way to compete in it. We don't have the same attitude towards our place in the world. We see the option to withdraw from the world, if we don't like the terms we have to follow to interact with other countries.

[Hello_Kitty]

13. They don't need to fear poor foreigners in Sweden

Because they protect their domestic industries and they don't tolerate illegal immigration. They also have tariffs and a VAT for goods imported outside of the EU. And it's been pointed out to you repeatedly that Sweden trading with Germany does not compare with the U.S and Canada trading with Mexico.

[pampango]

15. Actually the EU does not have tariffs on goods from very poor countries.

"The EU’s trade policy is closely linked to its development policy. The Union has granted duty-free or cut-rate access to its market for most of the imports from developing countries under its generalised system of preferences (GSP). It goes even further for the world’s 49 poorest countries, all of whose exports – with the sole exception of arms – enter the EU duty-free."

http://europa.eu/pol/comm/index_en.htm

The VAT makes everything manufactured in Sweden 20% (or whatever the VAT % is) more expensive. If we had a similar VAT in the US the cost of our domestically produced cars would go up by 20%. A $20,000 car would then cost $24,000. That would be tough on American consumers, just like it is tough now on Swedish consumers.

To level the playing field with imports from countries without a VAT, trading laws allow countries such as Sweden to levy a fee on imports equal to the amount of the VAT. That ensures that neither domestic nor foreign producers have a built-in advantage. Taxing the production chain to raise funds for their "welfare state" makes everything the Swedes make and buy more expensive. If they are willing to do this to themselves and their companies, they shouldn't be undercut by imports from countries that do not impose these burdens on themselves.

"Sweden trading with Germany does not compare with the U.S and Canada trading with Mexico". - Does Sweden trading with Mexico (the EU has an FTA with Mexico) compare with the US and Canada trading with Mexico? And, as noted above, the whole EU offers lower (or no) tariffs on goods from poor countries.

I think you are right about illegal immigration in Sweden. They are very liberal in accepting refugees (most recently are from the Middle East and may have lead to a backlash against immigration that enable the far-right Sweden Democrats to win representation in parliament for the first time). Sweden also has a higher percentage of foreign-born than the US, so they are very liberal on legal immigration, if not on illegal immigration.

[Hello_Kitty]

14. Correlation isn't causation

And many of the countries ranking at the bottom of that list were the victims of predatory shock doctrine capitalism that devastated their economies. Maybe they've adopted protectionist stances more recently because they got tired of growing cash crops for and having their resources plundered by plutocrats and said "enough".

It is quite honestly grotesque to look at desperately poor countries in Latin America and Africa that were ravaged by Milton Friedman-omics and chalk the situation up to not being open to global trade like Singapore and Sweden are.

[pampango]

16. And, I suppose, reverse correlation is not causation either.

What you say is true, but one would expect that if openness to trade was bad for countries, those countries most open to trade would be the worst off and those least open to trade would have some examples of prosperous, progressive societies.

Unless you've read more of the report than I have, the ranking doesn't draw conclusions. There may indeed be very valid and understandable reasons why a country is higher or lower on the list. Some may indeed have become more protectionist, as you say, in reaction to what happened when they tried to be more open to trading. The report has sections on each country to explain the ranking and put it in some historical context. I would hope that no one concludes that a Third World country is poor simply based on whether it is open to trade or not. There are many, many other factors that go into Third World poverty.

[Hawkeye-X]

6. Hey there! You're famous!

Can I have your autograph?

(This is in reference to the RH lawsuit against DU)

Hawkeye-X

[pampango]

11. Famous or infamous. I'm not sure which. Thanks, I think. n/t

[TheKentuckian]

9. Too damn free for me. Fair or fuck it, I sez. The rankings can piss up a rope whatever our placement

Lame efforts to paint a global underclass as a good thing can go to blazes.