The Trans-Pacific Partnership: A Pawn Sacrifice in the Global Game
Trump and Clinton are playing checkers
The pawn — the piece most readily sacrificed in pursuit of loftier goals.
To call someone a pawn is to suggest they can be useful, though ultimately expendable. As a symbol, it can sometimes convey manipulability. A pawn does not dictate strategy; rather, the pawn’s course is charted by forces operating a level far above it.
What does the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, have to do with chess? Let’s explore.
The TPP is a trade agreement signed earlier this year by the U.S. and eleven other countries who collectively represent one-third of world trade. New Zealand’s trade minister announced that the signing of the agreement signals the end of the negotiation process, which has taken more than five years to complete. He added:
Following signature, all 12 countries will be able to begin their respective domestic ratification processes and will have up to two years to complete that before the agreement enters into force.
The provisions include lowering, and in some cases eliminating, import and export taxes (i.e. tarrifs), implementing consistent copyright laws, and establishing a more efficient process of litigation/arbitration between companies and nations. Its stated aims are to deepen economic ties among member countries with a free, fair, and open market. The economic gains expected include boosting growth to GDP and the job market while lowering consumer prices.
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman called the signing of the TPP “an historic achievement for the Asia-Pacific region.” But back home, in our highly contentious political environment, the agreement has not been warmly welcomed by the candidates.
As you can see, the TPP is a highly contentious measure pilloried by leading politicians as an example of global capitalism run amok. The two leading candidates for president have framed the TPP as a policy that favors corporate interests at the expense of ordinary Americans.
But is this criticism fair? In a widely-cited study, conducted by an independent commission, the TPP is projected to boost GDP and generate jobs.
So what is the cost? The manufacturing sector, which has been declining for some time, would see an additional 0.2% decline in jobs. Mark J. Perry of the American Enterprise Institute has pointed out that this decline, said by some economists to be inevitable given the productivity gains caused by increasing automation, is a mark of economic success, not failure. Trading this for greater economic gains seems a no-brainer.
Here’s where the chess metaphor comes in: In order to make this play for a stronger American economic position, we would need to make pawn sacrifices — the pawns being the American jobs we’d forfeit to achieve the overall economic gains.
In the analytical work favored by the Obama administration, GDP and net employment will rise under the TPP. However, even in the most optimistic estimates one thing cannot be hidden: While global manufacturing jobs and exports will increase, some American manufacturing jobs will be outsourced. Reports vary wildly on whether we will experience net job growth or loss, though it’s a safe assumption domestic manufacturing will continue to slide.
If you’re of the Trump/Sanders persuasion and the idea of GDP as an economic metric is as tangible as quantum flux, then the only things you care about are jobs. Job growth. Job creation. On such an understanding, the TPP is a mortal enemy, because economic gains tend to be subordinated to another consideration: the state of our job market. Trump believes we should raise tariffs (who cares about retaliatory tariffs, right?); Sanders believes we should guarantee far greater worker protections and go much farther in seeking to eliminate economic inequality. But is there a sense in which this strategy amounts to prioritizing the pawns? The pawns in this example, recall, aren’t American workers. The pawns are economic considerations less important than other ones. A reasonable economic calculus tells us that greater affordability of products, growth to GDP, job creation, and other economic gains outweigh the elimination of jobs whose days are numbered to begin with.
What happens when the pawns are prioritized? Ask Djibouti: Highest tariffs in the world, 187th in GDP per capita. Ask Greece: Opulent welfare state turned economic black hole. Ask the Soviet Union: Dedicated workers paradise, now defunct laughing stock. Economic isolationist and protectionist policies tend not to work, and the destruction such policies leave in their wake tend to harm the very ones they purport to help.
What do the political fringes here in America want? High tariffs walls, guaranteed worker protections, and the elimination of economic inequalities. This is a recipe for economic disaster — we know this not just from current analyses but from history as well. Humans have short collective memories, and it shows.
You don’t get to pick and choose your participation in the free market. You’re either in (and your strong industries compete and your weak industries die) or you’re out (in which case economic stagnation is inevitable).
Furthermore, the anti-TPP crowd likes to discount the players on the outside of the TPP twelve. What of outsiders China, Russia, and India? These are massive countries with growing economies who would love to build trading blocs based on their own rules, their own strategic interests. And here we have it; we negotiated what those nations would kill for: A Pacific sphere of influence with the United States enjoying preeminence. If we throw away this opportunity to build a world in our economic image, we will regret it. Our economic rivals won’t squander such an opportunity.
English is the international language of aviation, because America pioneered flight and built the world’s aviation network. Facing coming economic obsolescence, the railroad unions must have been understandably upset — after all, jobs were lost to this shift in the transportation economy. Yet these were short-term losses which were sacrificed in order to make long-term economic gains. The cooper trade — the making of hogsheads, buckets, barrels, and firkins — was automated and the need for human labor died out. The world moved on, the market moved on. Those that embraced change and exploited opportunity profited, while those that held on to dying industries lost out.
Players that accept the pawn sacrifice as an unfortunate but necessary action win games. Players that refuse end up losing, and all their pawns lose by extension. It’s easy when the pawn doesn’t have a face or a voice. It’s hard when the pawn is an American blue-collar worker. But the choice doesn’t go away because it’s hard, and the United States will have to make it.
Trump is saying “King Me” and promising to make our problems go away. But this is chess. And our grand strategy moving forward must embrace the essential role of free trade within that global economic vision.
