When you think about “Trade Deals” – even the phrase elicits a myriad of opinions that causes the intellectual class to immediately drag the conversation into the esoteric weeds.
fig newton 1So allow me to give you an example of modern trade discussion using something many will be familiar with: Fig Newtons.  Specifically, Nabisco brand Fig Newtons.
How do you make a Fig Newton? Who is involved in the process of making a Fig Newton? And how does that chewy snack reach your market?  Understand that process and you understand the fundamental flaw in 2016 Trade deals.  Fig Newtons also highlight how to destroy the middle class.
There are three general aspects, and three groups responsible, to making a Fig Newton available to you.  The supply chain is known as “field to fork”, but any manufactured product can be viewed in the same three general ways:

  • The Farmer – (no collar) who produces the raw material
  • The Processor – (blue collar) who turns the raw material into a packaged good
  • The Consumer  – (white collar) the company (Nabisco) sells the finished good to a retailer (Market) who in turn sell the product to you, the consumer.

So let’s give the Fig Newton supply chain a face:
farmertrump workersMark Levine - Thumbs Up.

No collar Farmer – Blue Collar Processor – White collar Consumer

Whether you currently realize it or not the Nabisco Fig Newton raw materials are grown in the U.S., manufactured / “made in Mexico”, and shipped back to sell in the U.S.

The American farmer produces the raw material and it’s shipped to Mexico.  In Mexico the raw material is produced into a packaged good.  Then the packaged good is transported back to the U.S. to put on store shelves.

Now look at the picture above.  Think through the process.  Who is most negatively and economically impacted?

fig newton mexico 4

The reality is that all three are negatively impacted, I’ll touch on that in a moment, but for the sake of the economics and jobs aspect you can see the blue collar worker, the American middle class, is the group who suffers the most.

The blue collar suffers because the manufacturing is gone.  Sound familiar?

Now it might seem simplistic to look at a fig newton and extrapolate the current trade issues upon an innocently chewy and rather obscure treat.  However, the example is almost identical to the manufacturing process within a broad range of industries.

The raw material might be flour, sugar cane, wheat and fruits (as in the Fig Newton example), or the material might be hay, yes hay, used to feed cattle overseas in countries that cannot produce hay – hay is a massive export; or the raw material might be steel, iron, metals or -more increasingly- precious minerals (ex. silicon).

The flow is the same.   American material, shipped overseas, returns as finished goods.

Why?

You already know the answer.  The manufacturing process follows the path of least cost; the path of greatest profit and return.

However, the economic process does not come without serious costs and serious consequences.   Some of those consequences are far more than can be quantified within the cost of the finished good, because the entire process ultimately leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Lets look at a non-quantifiable cost example using food:

Farmer - simpleWhen you understand the scope of food export, and also the risks of food manufacturing, and when you understand the severity of quality control needed to produce food safely, you begin to understand why massive corporations are now overwhelming the independent farmer.

You’ll also discover why outbreaks of Listeria, E-Coli and other food processing illnesses are increasingly common.

These outsourced manufacturing and processing plants have far lower safety standards than U.S. manufacturing.  Other than corporate actuarial analysts who calculate risks, ie. the value of human life and comparative risk from the outsourced manufacturing, no-one else ever talks about that cost.

Get sick from Listeria and try suing the manufacturing company.  You’ll soon find yourself amid a multinational network of legality filled with “Hold Harmless” agreements where the manufacturing companies are shielded by the government of the nation doing the production.  Good luck suing Mexico.

Remember all the Chinese pet food that killed hundreds of American cats, dogs?   If you think these inherent risks are not real because you don’t eat fig newtons and don’t have a dog, well… where exactly are your pharmaceuticals coming from?   You see, the risk doesn’t diminish.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce rails against C.O.O.L (Country Of Origin Labeling), and spends hundreds of millions lobbying congress to ensure the origin of ‘store processed’ raw material foodstuffs do not have to be identified to the consumer.  Why is that?

Massive floating seafood factories operate for months at a time outside any nation’s jurisdiction.  Floating vessels that capture fish, process fish, manufacture  and package fish sticks, and deliver a frozen finished product by the time they reach the port.  Who’s inspecting that process?

That’s just a few current food examples.

It’s not just “trade” of products within these trade deals, that’s why there are 6,000 pages to the summary version (the broad outline of commitment) of Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal alone.

When the U.S. congress signs up to one of these deals they are giving away more than just American jobs, they are giving up American safety, sovereignty and caretaker custody of the supply chain.

TPP trade 2

In addition to the overwhelming climate change aspects, agreements to join carbon trade commissions, agreements to binding multinational decision making, massive bureaucracies even beyond the scope of the insufferable E.U. constructs, you’ll discover a compete lack of sovereign control over the consequences.

Who are the benefactors?

The multinational corporations; the Globalists.

It’s a “Kleptocracy” (as defined):  a government or state in which those in power exploit national resources and steal; rule by a thief or thieves.

In modern multinational trade, the thievery is of our own national resources and intellectual property for export.

Hence the hundreds of millions spent on lobbying:

Tom donohue 5

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