http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/09/01/donald-trump-says-the-outflow-of-jobs-to-mexico-is-tremendous-how-big-is-it/Donald Trump Says the ‘Outflow of Jobs’ to Mexico Is ‘Tremendous.’ How Big Is It?
It's a tiny fraction of U.S. employment, according to economists“We must take action to stem the tremendous outflow of jobs from our country,” Donald Trump said Wednesday after meeting Mexico’s president.
By WILLIAM MAULDIN
Sep 1, 2016 6:56 am ET
Donald Trump said trade has caused a “tremendous” exodus of American jobs. But it’s really more of a trickle, economists say.
The Republican presidential nominee, visiting Mexico, said the North American Free Trade Agreement has benefited Mexico more than the U.S.
“We must take action to stem the tremendous outflow of jobs from our country,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday after meeting Mexico’s president.
But trade is a two-way street, and a 2014 study published by the Peterson Institute for International Economics estimated that while imports from Mexico have displaced 203,000 jobs a year, the two-way trade has also supported 188,000 jobs due to U.S. exports headed south. So that’s a net 15,000 jobs lost annually, a tiny fraction of U.S. employment, according to the 2014 study by Gary Hufbauer, Cathleen Cimino and Tyler Moran.
Some economists, pointing to the $61 billion U.S. trade deficit with Mexico, say Nafta is responsible for a higher number of job losses.
But pretty much all would agree that imports from China, where the trade deficit measured a whopping $367 billion last year, are a bigger problem for the U.S. economy.
“Trade with Mexico has no measurable impact on U.S. unemployment or U.S. wages, unlike trade with China,” Mr. Hufbauer said Wednesday.
The job leakage Hufbauer estimates is tiny compared with the dire warnings of 1992 U.S. presidential candidate Ross Perot, who predicted a “giant sucking sound” of jobs going to Mexico, or the claims by former President Bill Clinton and other Nafta supporters that the deal would create hundreds of thousands of new jobs a year.
Mr. Trump also said Wednesday that the job outflows are getting “worse and worse.” But most economists and officials say the biggest recent trade-related threat to jobs—the rapid rise of China—is mostly behind us.
