Hateful rhetoric undermines U.S. interests
The rhetoric throughout this electoral season needs little introduction. We’ve all heard the calls from both sides to stop immigrants, turn back refugees, build walls, block trade and rip up our international agreements. Instead of looking outward, it’s a sharp move away from the global arena. It seems that for the home of the brave, we’re in full retreat these days.
I understand the anger driving this withdrawal. Far too many Americans are looking at their lives and realizing that it’s not what they expected. Local economies have shifted and wages stagnated, leaving many workers in tough straits. Education systems and other public services are uneven in their quality. And Americans are tired of hearing the same promises from their representatives with few significant or long-term changes.
I grew up believing that when Americans take a few hits, we come out swinging. Yet this time around, it seems that we aren’t just stepping back; we are racing toward the locker room. And no one is stepping up and pointing us back toward the ring. In f act, the advice that we are hearing throughout the primaries is to bar the door on the way in.
Trade is at the center of this isolationist impulse, with presidential candidates of all stripes piling over one another to denounce current trading policies. Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have called the United States’ trade agreements “disastrous;” Hillary Clinton backed away from the very agreement that she once promoted; and Ted Cruz claims that when it comes to international trade “we are getting killed.” Everyone wants to blame someone, but no one wants to talk about what needs to be done.
The idea that we can throw away the current agreements — both those that have already been passed and those waiting for a vote — is not leadership but an inward and pessimistic reaction. It would also be a deeply devastating policy approach. Far from creating a workers’ renaissance, it would cut into Americans’ purchasing power and endanger jobs.
An America without trade would boost prices and ultimately our bills every time that we check out at the grocery or electronics store. It would also destroy jobs as companies struggle to stay afloat amid mounting costs. This would go far beyond the big manufacturing companies to include the millions of American jobs — from truck drivers to small auto parts suppliers — that depend both directly and indirectly on trade.
If we were serious about getting the economy on track, then we’d use our time and energy to focus on the more complicated mix of technological advances, evolving economies and globalization that leads to factory shutdowns. And we’d concentrate on how to retrain laid-off workers and boost our companies and workforce’s competitiveness. Blaming trade for all our economy’s ills is not just wrong, it’s not enough.
The same fear-based arguments hold true for the current national conversation on immigrants. The dark force of xenophobia that has reared its ugly head is unfortunately nothing new. In f act, if you claim Italian or Irish heritage — which is over 50 million Americans — then your relatives were also on the receiving end of some nasty slurs.
There is also something else that is not new: the Latin phrase: “E pluribus unum” or, “Out of many, one” that has been emblazoned on the U.S. seal since 1782. We are a nation of immigrants and refugees, and fostering hatred or fear for these groups is not going to make the United States any more prosperous or secure. In fact, it is likely to do the opposite.
Most Americans’ daily global interactions come from trade and immigration — as new goods and people enter our country — and this means that our leadership abroad must begin at home. If we aren’t courageous enough to stand up against isolationism or to reject simplistic explanations that play to our deepest fears or frustrations, we’ll be abandoning the fighting spirit that the world expects and needs from the home of the brave.