Brad Eylander

Econ 212
Wiki Paper 2
World Trade Issues

International trading has been a good resource for countries around the world wanting and
needing different goods and services that they do not have. However, most countries have different
views and needs then other countries and this can create issues in a lot of countries. For example,
country A may need something from country B, but country B may not want to trade country A because
country A doesn't have something country B needs. This scenario can be related to major industrialized
countries not needing supplies from other smaller countries. Another common issue in international
trading is the job market, because oversea jobs are cheaper, major companies in high industrialized
countries will move jobs overseas to less industrialized countries with cheaper wages, decreasing much
of the job market in the high industrialized country. Issues such as trading and employment come up all
the time in international trading, but with global communication, increasing technology, and better
education global economies can still grow.

Before we began, we must know how international trading works by first understanding key
concepts. First and most important word is globalization, which is when countries throughout the
world use free trade in order to find cheaper foreign labor markets to create a global economy
(Webster). Another common concept that is similar to globalization is international trading.
International trading is the exchange of goods and services across international boundaries or
territories. With all international trading comes taxing, the term for taxation on foreign goods upon
importation is tariff (Public). When discussing jobs, the concept of outsourcing jobs is when countries
such as America (or any high industrialized country) shift workers to lower economic countries to
increase business income. The final organization that will be discussed is the ILO (International Labor
Organization). ILO's mission is to create opportunities for men and women to have fair working
conditions, ensure peoples rights at work, encourage decent employment opportunities, enhance social
protection and strengthen dialog in handling work-related issues (ILO).

International trading is very important in the US because it depends on the economy's well-
being; the more a country can exports of goods and services to other countries, the better the economy
does and vice versa. Lately, technology has been increasing also causing international trading to
increase. With an increase in international trading, high paying jobs have been switching to lower
paying jobs across seas -laying off people in these higher paying jobs-. International trading is
important for all countries because it shows how an economy is doing comparatively with the rest of
the world. One prime location of international trading within the US is Washington State because it's
located at the top left corner of the country. Being located right next to the Pacific Ocean it gets lots of
international trading with East Asia, especially China. China is one of the biggest countries that the US
trades with and the Port of Tacoma in Washington is the location at which most trade interactions take
place. With so much trading that China has to offer -grain, iron, steel, and airplane parts-, the US has
put themselves in debt of about $800 billion dollars with private and public sectors. Washington and
it's good trade relations with East Asia plays a key role on how the US can find a way to benefit the
public and private organizations on the East coast to turn around the large debt we have with China and
other East Asian countries (Kearsley).

Another important vocabulary word that has yet been discussed is WTO (World Trade
Organization). The WTO is an international organization designed to supervise and liberalize
international trading by finding global rules all countries can agree on and only trading with the
countries that obey these rules. It's responsible for negotiating and implementing new trade agreements
and is in charge of making sure all the countries follow all the WTO agreements (Public_2). The WTO
has big impacts on US international trading because a lot of countries and people don't like it. Many
people complain that the WTO excludes poor countries from it's trading and only includes rich
countries who can pay the tariff. Critics also complain that because there are many rules in the WTO
labor rights suffer because of it. The WTO has major impact on the people because people want equal
rights as everyone else. People receiving goods don't want to exclude other countries from trading just
because they're not in the WTO agreement, many people like more of a free-market trading where
anything can be traded.

Being most concerned about the international trading and the impact on society are the
unemployed people and the government. The top person in charge of the economy and how
international trading is ran is President Bush. The US is in massive debt with other countries and the
President is in charge of getting us out of it. Another group within the US government system that have
major concerns with international trading countries are the Democrats. For example, the Democratic
government want Colombia, Panama, Peru and South Korea to ban child and slave labor and the right
to organize; they even want the US to change laws in the International Labor Organization (Weisman)
to help promote this. The reason why the Democrats want to ban child labor and slave labor is because
Democrats are all for the people, and they believe strongly in equal labor rights in the US and
throughout other countries they trade with. Although the government is most involved, the people in
the US are probably the most concerned because many jobs are being lost due to the outsourcing of
jobs in other countries across seas.

On October 1995 LA Times took a poll asking people if they were afraid about the impact of
increased trade agreements with foreign countries create less jobs and a lower standard of living, 63%
agreed and 32% disagreed (International Trading). To confirm this, it's estimated that 12,000 – 15,000
jobs positions in the US have been moving overseas a month. However, the flip-side to outsourcing is
not always negative; there are some benefits. One benefit is that increase profit in companies can cause
industrial expansion, thus creating more jobs at higher wages due to more international trading.
Another benefit is that the increase in outsourcing jobs obligates more people to increase their
education, thus creating more opportunities for them to get good jobs and increasing production in US
companies (Otterman).

To sum up the issue of international trading, we have discussed the rules, benefits and loses.
The rules are guided and enforced by the WTO, and those in the WTO have signed a contract in
acknowledgment of the rules and to abide by them. The loses to the increase in international trading is
the loss of jobs, due to companies in the US moving work across seas, to create more profit. However,
with lose also comes gain. The US can reverse their situation of a smaller job market by increasing
education, creating more opportunities for an individual to move up in the job market. With more
people in the job market more industrialized countries will export more goods and services. Although
international trading takes away jobs, it will strive the people in the US to create more jobs and to
export more goods. In exporting more goods, the US may finally get out of it's debt and climb to the
top of the economic world wealth.

Works Cited:

“Globalization”, Merriam Websters Online Dictionary.

URL: <http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/globalization>
“International Trade”, Public, Wikipedia, 8/1/07.
URL: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_trade>

“How To Reach Out to Pacific Power”, Kelly Kearsley, Red Orbit, 2006.
URL: <http://www.redorbit.com/modules/news/tools.php?tool=print&id=423945>

“World Trade Organization”, Public_2, Wikipedia, March 2007.

URL: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WTO>

“Labor Rights Issues Are Stalling Trade Pacts”, Steven R. Weisman, The New York Times, April 21,
2007.
URL:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/21/business/21trade.html?ex=1334808000&en=c63b31bb345d7bfd
&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss>

“About the ILO”, Unknown Author, The International Labor Organization, 1996-2007.
URL: <http://www.ilo.org/global/About_the_ILO/lang--en/index.htm>

“International Trade”, Unknown Author, Americas and the World

URL: <http://www.americans-world.org/digest/global_issues/intertrade/reservations_trade.cfm>

“Trade: Outsourcing Jobs”, Sharon Otterman, Counsel on Foreign Relations, Feb. 20, 2004
URL: <http://www.cfr.org/publication/7749/trade.html>

1. Questions:
1.1 There was a good variety of sources listed under each question on this wiki.
Rating (see 1-5 scale above) 4
There was a lot of sources to chose from with a good variety.
1.2 As I was answering the questions for essay #2, I felt that I had sufficient sources for each question
on the wiki and I did not feel that I needed to find more.
Rating (see 1-5 scale above) 3
I found a lot more sources because the sources provided didn't contain enough information as I wanted.
2. Source descriptions
2.1 I found the source descriptions to be accurate in their presentation of the information contained in the
sources I used for essay #2.
Rating (see 1-5 scale above) 5
Each source had good information describing the resource.
2.2 The source descriptions did a good job in telling me what each of the sources had to offer.
Rating (see 1-5 scale above) 5
The descriptions had accurate source information
3. Formatting and presentation
3.1 The information on the wiki was presented in a way that made it easy to get what I needed from the
descriptions, and made it easy to access the sources.
Rating (see 1-5 scale above) 4
All the links worked, but the information from websites provided was pasted on the wiki, which was
kinda confusing.
4. Other comments
Pretty good sources.