Is Tim Pawlenty Gunning to Be the GOP's Protectionist Candidate in 2012?

Last week, I lamented that GOP Presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty's mercantilist statements on free trade were somewhat contradictory and really mundane.  His latest statements on trade, however, are more troubling and have him increasingly looking like the GOP's protectionist for 2012 (there's always at least one).

If you were (sane) like me, you didn't spend last night glued to CNN to watch the GOP Presidential Debate in New Hampshire.  But a quick search of the debate transcript (yes, I know, I need to rescind my previous allegation of sanity) reveals that the only comments on trade came from Pawlenty in response to a question on how the candidates "plan on returning manufacturing jobs to the United States":

PAWLENTY: There's a number of things we need to do. Restore manufacturing in this country. And I grew up if in a meat packing town. I grew up in a manufacturing town. I was in a union for six or seven years.

I understand what it's like to see the blue-collar communities and the struggles that they've had when manufacturing leaves. So I've seen that firsthand. But number one, we've got to have fair trade, and what's going on right now is not fair.


I'm for a fair and open trade but I'm not for being stupid and I'm not for being a chump. And we have individuals and organizations and countries around this world who are not following the rules when it comes to fair trade. We need a stronger president and somebody who's going to take on those issues.

Sigh.  I've already dismantled the "fair trade" and "everybody cheats" myths several times on this blog, so I won't do so again here.  And, frankly, Pawlenty's statements here are almost identical to the tough-guy chest-thumping that he's done in the past about free trade (as I noted last week), so his statements last night, while underwhelming, aren't really that disturbing or noteworthy.

What is disturbing and noteworthy, however, is that Pawlenty, when asked about manufacturing job losses, immediately resorted to scapegoating free trade as the primary driver of those losses.  And, by the way, he was the only GOP hopeful to do so.  Ron Paul (unsurprisingly) targeted US monetary policy; Michele Bachmann (quite rightly) attacked onerous US tax and regulatory policies; Rick Santorum also took a swipe at tax policy.  None of them blamed trade policy for manufacturing job losses.

Except Governor Pawlenty.

Of course, this stance is utter poppycock:  not only are most American manufacturing job losses the result of things like technology gains and changing consumer tastes, but they also have been happening for decades and are in no way unique to the United States.  Moreover, a lot of American manufacturers depend on trade (imports and exports) in order to remain globally competitive and/or to find new customers abroad.  So, if anything, our politicians should cite free trade policy as a solution to, not cause of, US industrial job-losses.  Thus, it's quite troubling that, when asked about those job losses, Tim Pawlenty's first thought was to blame trade - a strategy, by the way, that's right out of the protectionist playbook.  The unions do it; pandering Democratic politicians do it; and the professional anti-traders do it.

So why is a GOP presidential candidate - especially one who just recently championed free market fiscal policies that directly contradict such an anti-trade stance - doing it too?

I honestly have no idea.

Fortunately for Pawlenty, his trade statements received big praise from one pundit.  Unfortunately, it was MSNBC's Ed Schultz (start at the 3:30 mark):

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Err, congrats Governor.

Thinking Inside the Box on Trade

Former Minnesota Governor and GOP Presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty delivered a rousing speech today on his economic vision for America.  The full text of the speech is here, and it's unsurprisingly receiving praise and sneers from the chattering classes (sometimes both in the same commentary).  His calls for a serious reduction in the corporate tax rate from 35% to 15%, the elimination of tax loopholes and a flattening of individual tax rates will certainly help improve American companies' global competitiveness (and attract foreign investment).  And his repeated call for reform of ethanol subsidies is, as I've already noted, not bad considering a lot of his current GOP primary competition.

But Pawlenty's stance on free trade was, well, utterly pedestrian::

Just as the federal government must break down barriers within our domestic markets. We must break down barriers in international markets.

Congress should ratify completed free trade agreements with South Korea — and Colombia. And complete the agreement with Panama. We should start new bilateral talks with our trading partners. To promote our exports.

President Obama set a goal of doubling exports. Yet his policies have prevented this. Mine will achieve it.

Ahh, yes, the political siren-song of mercantilism.  Grrreat.  Of course, this exports-good-imports-not-so-much position is in line with Pawlenty's previous statements on trade, as noted in the Club for Growth's handy primer on the candidate:

In an interview during a trade mission to China in 2010, Pawlenty said that “we all agree from an American perspective that the Chinese manipulation of their currency and pegging of it to the dollar is inappropriate and unfair.” In later comments, Governor Pawlenty did not rule out imposing tariffs on China.

Also, Pawlenty fought against lower trade barriers on sugar when CAFTA was being considered by Congress, and he was in favor of retaining the temporary steel tariffs imposed by President Bush.

While we understand the political considerations Pawlenty had in trying to protect his home state sugar beet industry, his support of trade barriers is equivalent to support of higher costs for consumers – both in Minnesota and across the country.

A 2011 MinnPost article described Pawlenty’s attitude towards trade policy this way: “Pass pending free trade deals with Colombia, Panama and South Korea while looking for more. And don’t be afraid to call out trading partners – China by name – when they don’t live up to their end of the bargain. ‘I’m for free trade, but I’m not for being a chump,’ he said to the approval of the crowd.”

Pawlenty's mercantilist message is, as the Club rightly notes, problematic from an economic perspective, and, of course, it contradicts the strong support for cutting most other types of taxes that the candidate outlined in his pro-growth speech today.  Furthermore, as Dan Ikenson and I noted in a recent paper, Pawlenty's exports-only trade message is also both unnecessary and counter-productive from a political standpoint.  In short, it's just the same old pablum.

Fairly or not, Pawlenty's been routinely characterized as an uninspiring "second-tier" candidate.  On some issues, his speech today might help the Governor shake that reputation, but his unoriginal stance on trade - one that fails to recognize the benefits of imports and the realities of a today's globalized economy, and that contradicts the rest of his pro-growth, low-tax message - sure won't.