Shuster's Letter Exposes 'Free Trade'

Shuster's Letter Exposes 'Free Trade'
April 4, 2003

Biography of George W. Shuster

George W. Shuster, President of Cranston Print Works Company, fired off the following letter to "The Associated Industries of Mass-achusetts" last summer to take them to task for their enthusiastic advocacy of "Free Trade" policies.

The industry group responded in the Winter 2003 issue of "Business and In-dustry Reporter," by saying they took a second look at their policy and have ad-justed it somewhat to push for fairer trade.

George W. Shuster says that "free trade" is a great theory, but that's not what we're practicing.

Dear Editor:

I am afraid I must take strenuous exception to your August 9, 2002, headline and story ("Passage of Trade Bill Good News for Massachusetts"). In fact, the trade bill, like U.S. trade policy in general, is an unmitigated disaster. Senator Kerry, instead of being praised, should be condemned for not voting against the measure, as most of the New England and Massachusetts congressional delegations had the good sense to do.

I suggest A.I.M. revisit its trade policy position. Your article certainly does not speak for our Company and probably not for the majority of your members who have been following where U.S. trade policy has actually taken us.

In support of that request, I offer here only the briefest possible summary of the extreme devastation so-called "free trade" has brought us.

The first thing to realize is that "free trade," while it may be nice in theory in Econ 101 textbooks, is not what the U.S. practices. Rather our trade policy has been hijacked by those whose overwhelming goal is import maximization. They only call it "free trade" because they know that is how to fool the gullible public, which evidently includes organizations like A.I.M., as to their true objectives.

"Trade" is a two-way concept; the self-styled "free traders," however, are in truth interested in one direction, getting imports into the U.S. as cheaply and quickly as possible. Thus they are really "free importers," and to the extent they persist in adopting the mask of "free traders," they are "free imposters."

These people have succeeded so well that the U.S. is now the most open market the world has ever seen, with the largest trade deficit in the known history of the universe.

In case you are not aware of the scope of the problem, the net trade deficit is now over $1 billion a day. The exodus of that amount of funds from the U.S. is not sustainable. Over the past several years it has resulted in the loss of millions of American manufacturing jobs, the weakening of the dollar, the savaging of our stock market, calamity for whole families and communities (especially minorities and women), and the swelling of cash reserves in our economic (and potentially military) competitors.

This devastation has resulted because these so-called "free traders," the import maximizers, have not cared to negotiate reciprocal access in their haste to pursue their own narrow, instead of the national, interest. That they have been very generous in their contributions to the likes of Senator Kerry does not make them any less "free traitors" for putting themselves first over country.

They also like to label the opposition as that modern pariah, "protectionist." They join the foreign chorus of the Indians, Pakistanis, Turks, etc. in condemning us. It is a bold-faced lie. The U.S. is not "protectionist." We are the most open market in the world, and our trade deficit, which may soon surpass the $500 billion mark, is the acid-test measure of the degree of our relative non-protection.

Why would the "free traitors" join foreigners in calling their own country "protectionist?" Answer: so they never have to negotiate fair trade agreements, ones good for all Americans, not just importers. So they can continue to surrender our market unilaterally.

Are you aware that in the 304 pages of the Trade Promotion Authority Act are more unilateral giveaways of our markets, with nothing even asked, much less obtained in return? Estimates of this latest round of giveaways are that next year they will result in some $4 to $7.5 billion more coming into this country duty free. With our record-breaking trade deficit already ruining America, this is not the time to expand it even further.

Are you also aware of the degree to which these imposters have created a world in which country after country - including most tellingly those countries which typically whine the loudest about how "protectionist" the U.S. is-have trade barriers far larger than ours? Of course that is irrelevant to the import maximizing crowd.

Take our Company for example, the oldest textile company in the U.S. If we ship our printed fabric to India, the tariffs and other charges are 40 to 80 percent, and there are significant non-tariff barriers (NTB's) as well. If India ships the identical product to us, the tariff is 6 to 11 percent, and there are no NTB's. Yet India is constantly denouncing the U.S. as protectionist, and in textiles! And the U.S. "free traitors" chime in on cue.

As a result of discrepancies like this, the overall so-called textile/apparel "trade" between the U.S. and India is close to 120 to one. That is, 120 Indian imports taken in here, to one export to them. To call that "trade" is disingenuous at best.

These numbers are not unusual. For example, the similar trade ratio for Pakistan is 75 to one, for Turkey 65 to one, and for Indonesia 1200 to one.

The point is what the "free traitors" and their dupes in the press and academia will never tell you: this is not about trades; it's about imports.

The import maximizers never saw a trade deficit they did not think could be made larger. Their very success to date should be a red flag to all patriotic Americans: we do not need any more of it. Passing TPA was just another instance of their dishonest plots, and they fooled you!

In another time and place, theorizing about "free trade" and even putting it into practice could make economic sense. Not now. You are among the hoodwinked. Given the devastating trade deficit we already have, and the true motives of those calling the shots in U.S. trade policy, the passage of TPA was not "good news." Instead of saying it was, a better headline would have been: "Help! Enough is Enough."

P.S. Why don't you do a fairly worded survey on the issue of U.S. trade policy with your members? I think you might be surprised by the results, since poll after poll of the American people shows a rejection of U.S. trade policy by massive majorities. If you keep score, I think you'll find those in favor to be importers, retailers, and large multi-nationals manufacturing abroad and shipping it here. The rest, I will predict, would be very critical of our import maximizing ways.

George Shuster joined Cranston Print Works Company in 1978, has been on its Board of Directors since 1981, was elected President and CEO in 1991, and was elected to the additional duties of Chairman in 2000. Prior to joining Cranston, he was a partner of the Providence, RI law firm of Edwards & Angell.

He is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Yale University and has graduate degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale Law School. At Yale, he was a Yale National, and National Merit, Scholar. At M.I.T. he was a National Science Foundation Fellow. He also served on the staff of Chief of Naval Operations while in the U.S. Navy, and clerked for Judge Robert P. Anderson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit following law school. He was also an eagle scout.

He is currently an officer of the following organizations: Textile Workers Pension Fund (Chairman), Kent County Memorial Hospital (Chairman), the Center for Design and Business (Co-chair), the Manufacturer's Council of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce (Co-chair), the Finishers Committee of the National Textile Association (Chairman), and the American Manufacturing Trade Action Coalition, or "AMTAC" (Co-chair).

In addition he serves on the Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the Trade Advisory Committee for the U.S. Department of Commerce, as well as the Boards of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, the Machine Printers and Engravers Pension Fund, the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation, the Textile Distributors Association, and the National Textile Association.

Previously he served on the Boards of the RI Audubon Society, the Slater Mill and the Providence Public Library.

As outside interests, he has authored numerous articles on sperm whale populations, collected fossils and won many national championships in masters' rowing.