Page 1 of 4 Daez/Argauer

Neg – Free Trade 2018-2019

NEG – FREE TRADE

Philip Argauer

1 US Trading Partners ....................................................................................................... 2

2 Bad for Enviornment ........................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
3 China’s Inferior Labor Laws ......................................................................................... 3
4 Not same values ................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.

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1 US TRADING PARTNERS
“Foreign Trade: Data.” U.S. Top Trading Partners, U.S. Census Bureau, Jan. 2017,
https://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/highlights/top/top1901yr.html.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the United States trades roughly 41% each year with its top three biggest
trading partners: Canada, China, and Mexico. The Each account for roughly 14% of the US trading percentage
with the fourth most prominent partner, Japan, at only 5%. For the purposes of this debate, the Negative Team
will use only the U.S.’s three biggest trading partners when referring to the U.S.’s trading partners.

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2 CHINA’S INFERIOR LABOR LAWS

China doesn’t enforce their labor laws.
Guo, Baogang. “China's Labor Standards: Myths and Realities.” Academia.edu - Share Research, Feb. 2003,
www.academia.edu/165449/China_s_Labor_Standards_Myths_and_Realities.

“…many of these standards were either ignored or not followed strictly.”

Reasons for no enforcement

Same Source

“There are several causes of the weak enforcement. First of all, the local government has adopted a pro-
business attitude. In order to attract foreign business, they are afraid to impose tough rule to protect labors.
Consequently, many labor laws and regulations were non-enforced. Only when some serious accidents or large-
scale protest occurs, the government will then be more serious about labor’s complaints. Another reason is that
trade union has so far not being able to serve as the true voice of labors. Many private enterprises resisted the
idea of unionizing the workplace. Finally, the ability of the central government to enforce laws has been
seriously eroded as a result of on-going government institutional reforms.”

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Neg – Free Trade 2018-2019

3 PROTCTING DOMESTIC EMPLOYMENT

Harley Davidson Saved by Tariffs
Horowitz, Evan. “Tariffs Can Work - When They're Part Of A Plan.” FiveThirtyEight, FiveThirtyEight, 13 Mar. 2018,
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trumps-tariffs-could-actually-work-if-he-has-a-plan/.

This kind of targeted tariff helped save Harley Davidson, for example. In the early 1980s, the company was
losing market share to smaller, more affordable imports from Japan. Bankruptcy seemed a real possibility
until President Ronald Reagan agreed to introduce a severe protective tariff. Deliberately designed to be
fast-acting and short-lived, the tariff started at a steep 49.4 percent before gradually falling back to the
normal 4.4 percent rate over the course five years. In the end, it didn’t take that long for Harley Davidson to
reorganize its operations, fix manufacturing problems and return to profitability.

Rebuttal: Unemployment is worse than inflation

Appelbaum, Binyamin. “Inflation Is Miserable. Unemployment Is Worse.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 12
Apr. 2013, https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/12/inflation-is-miserable-unemployment-is-worse/.

Higher unemployment and higher inflation correlate with lower levels of reported well-being, the research
shows. But the impact of unemployment is much larger. A one percentage point increase in unemployment
lowers well-being nearly four times as much as an equivalent rise in inflation, the paper says.

Definition of Protectionism
According the Cambridge Dictionary,
“PROTECTIONISM | Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary.” PROTECTIONISM | Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1U7NaW3N7NPKuPKGFajfIN6gTXC8E89x5SoQxueLNk5s/edit?ts=5cabbcd3,.

“Protectionism is the actions of a government to help its country's trade or industry by taxing goods bought
from other countries

Tariffs bring in revenue

Heeb, Gina. “The Government Is Raking in Billions of Dollars from Trump's Tariffs. Americans Are the Ones Paying. |
Markets Insider.” Business Insider, Business Insider, Nov. 2018,
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/trump-tariffs-revenue-up-sharply-american-costs-increase-2018-11-
1027713336.

Federal revenue from tariffs in the third quarter increased by more than 33% from the same quarter last year,
Treasury Department data shows. And in October — the first full month in which all tariffs announced to date
were in effect — the monthly collection appears to have doubled from the 2017 level to about $6 billion,
according to estimates from daily receipts.

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