Readers React: The numbers show Trump’s trade war threatens global peace and U.S. prosperity

To the editor: Yong Wang’s op-ed article about trade with China is helpful, but it misses two important points: first, that trade causes prosperity, and second, that trade causes peace.

The best metric of the wisdom of the trade deals in both 1994 and 2000 is American GDP per capita following those deals. By that measure, the average American has become much richer between 1990 and 2017. The rise has been steady and steep, from $23,955 to $59,531.

If you look at overall U.S. unemployment during the same time period, you see a multi-year decline immediately following 1994 (the North American Free Trade Agreement), and a one-year increase in 2001. However, three events coincided in 2001: the dot-com bust, the 9/11 attacks, and the trade agreement with China. And even that one-year increase faded away until 2008.

More important, but harder to measure, trade has kept the peace among the countries. Trump’s anti-trade policies threaten this atmosphere.

John L. Graham, Irvine

The writer, a professor emeritus at UC Irvine’s Paul Merage School of Business, is director of the university’s Center for Global Leadership.

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To the editor: Wang compares China’s record with other “developing” nations, such as India. You cannot be considered developing when you are the second-largest economy in the world.

Wang also mentions that China’s “advantage” is cheap labor. Is this an advantage or a human rights violation? If Amazon were allowed to house, pay and feed its employees similar to what Chinese factory workers get, that company could produce and sell all its inventory in the United States, eliminating the need for trade with China.

According to the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property, China is responsible for stealing up to $600 billion worth of intellectual property per year. Wang states that China paid $28 billion in intellectual property fees last year. The U.S. intellectual property owners are hardly the “beneficiaries” in this arrangement.

All the United States is asking for is reciprocity. The U.S. president is challenging the world to eliminate all trade barriers and tariffs. Only then will the world have true, free and fair trade.

William David Stone, Beverly Hills

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