Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
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The Washington Post wrongly asserted that Bruce Reed, who will be Vice President Joe Biden’s chief of staff: “encouraged free trade and deficit reduction during the economic boom years of the 1990s.”
This is not true. Reed, along with Gene Sperling and William Daley, the other recent Obama picks mentioned in the article, pushed for trade agreements that had the effect of putting manufacturing workers in more direct competition with low-paid workers in Mexico and other developing countries. Such deals had the predicted and actual effect of lowering the wages of manufacturing workers and non-college educated workers more generally.
None of these people have been associated with a larger free trade agenda, which would include efforts to eliminate the professional and licensing barriers that protect highly educated professionals like doctors and lawyers from foreign competition. And all three have been supportive of the protectionist portions of recent trade deals that increase the strength of copyright and patent protections. For these reasons, it is totally inaccurate to describe Reed, as well as the other Obama officials, as supporters of “free trade.”