Columbia International Affairs Online
CIAO DATE: 4/5/2008
Strengthening Trade Adjustment Assistance
January 2008
Abstract
In 1962, when the United States was running a trade surplus, imports were barely noticeable, and manufacturing employment was increasing, Congress made a commitment to assist American workers, firms, and communities hurt by international trade, by establishing the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) program. This commitment was based on an appreciation that despite their large benefits, widely distributed throughout the economy, international trade and investment could also be associated with severe economic dislocations. President John F. Kennedy best enunciated this commitment when he wrote
Those injured by trade competition should not be required to bear the full brunt of the impact. Rather, the burden of economic adjustment should be borne in part by the federal government.... [T]here is an obligation to render assistance to those who suffer as a result of national trade policy.
More than 40 years later, with a trade deficit above 5 percent of GDP, with imports as a percent of GDP five times what they were in 1962, and with manufacturing employment falling, this commitment is more important than ever before.
