Trade anxiety!

http://fortune.com/2015/06/22/top-fast-track-david-ricardo/
Students in any macro-economic class will have encountered David Ricardo and his theory of comparative advantage, which is pretty much the cornerstone of global trade today. A straightforward theory explaining that when countries 'specialize' in producing whatever they are good at producing, they will trade those goods or services with countries who specialize in something else. Both countries benefit financially when they trade making governments and merchants on both sides of the transaction better off. No serious person refutes Ricardo's theory on the merits today; the dispute on most free-trade issues is over whether or not other countries will abide by the same standards they sign up for in this massive deals that presumable cover everything from agriculture and automobile standards to pay for displaced workers and anti-dumping laws.

As someone who is in favor of free trade, I am sympathetic to concerns most Americans (citizens of other democracy as well) have about the loss of sovereignty in the exercise of the government authority. For example, Greece is a country in the center of a financial disaster due to mismanagement and negligence on the part of former government officials. They are in such a hole that the EU has to put together bail out packages every couple of months to keep them from collapsing into insolvency. Many German and French citizens would love to cut Greece off and let them fix their own mess. Problem is, much of their sovereignty has been tied into by a collective governing body known as the EU, which decides how much money and how often economies like Greece get bailouts and under what conditions. If the Germans took a vote over whether or not to fund insolvent Greece the result would be a definitive NO! But they don't get a vote because they ceded the authority to decide on financial issues to a giant central bank. I don't want this for America; we need to retain the ability to vote out bad deals while maintaining open trade with other countries. It is nearly impossible to satisfy every industry or concerned party in sweeping trade legislation, but diligence must be observed.

The upcoming piece of legislation on the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) is supposed to lower tariffs and increase exports of goods and services from the United States. Well...maybe. When looking at upcoming legislation, the best example of future performance is past performance. Unfortunately the nearest example is the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) but I can't find anything resembling a coherent argument for or against the massive overhaul. I know the trade classifications, or rather re-classifications, were updated for the U.S, Canada and Mexico to keep much of the money within the region. Trade classifications are those designations that products crossing international borders must be labeled with. So if Japan sends BMWs to the U.S. on cargo ships, those automobiles would have a corresponding label that fits an automotive description recognized by every country. NAFTA created it's own classification book essentially, that labels products like automobiles created in the U.S different from ones manufactured in Japan.  To say the least, it is confusing and messy but I don't really know whether or not it is considered beneficial to the overall economy. I'll keep looking at this as well as the new TPP deal currently being debated in Washington. I am cautiously on board though so far.