Inward-looking policies could wind up doing harm, not good

P RESIDENT Trump promised during the campaign to place the United States’ interests first and foremost on his agenda, and he has acted on that by imposing a temporary immigration ban from some countries, pulling the U.S. out of the TransPacific Partnership, and setting his sights on the North American Free Trade Agreement.

This nationalistic approach appeals to the president’s supporters, yet some of his policies also have the potential to harm Americans and those overseas. Two recent stories underscore the point.

In an interview this week with USA Today, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda noted the adverse impact nationalism in this country and Britain could have on their philanthropic efforts in Third World countries, particularly if the two superpowers rein in their foreign aid significantly.

According to the Gateses, foreign aid from Britain and the U.S. has helped save 122 million children’s lives through vaccines and nutrition since 1990. The number of women in the developing world using modern contraceptives (300 million) has increased by 50 percent since 2003. The number of polio cases has shrunk to low double digits. The Gates’ foundation has assisted in these efforts.

“Governments have to look outward,” Melinda Gates told the newspaper. “The message we are giving is, we are a global community. Ebola came here (to the United States). When we help the world, peace and security also shows up on our doorstep.”

Some would argue that Ebola cases winding up in the United States provide further reason to seal the borders. One of Bill Gates’ concerns, though, is that the administration’s agenda could interrupt what has been a longtime bipartisan commitment to improving health outcomes worldwide. If it does, that would be unfortunate.

As for the North American Free Trade Agreement, Oklahoma is one of many states that would feel the pain of the pact being torn up by Trump. In 2014, Oklahoma’s export shipments of merchandise totaled $6.3 billion. Exports to Canada accounted for $1.9 billion of that. Mexico was the state’s secondbiggest export market, accounting for $612 million in exports.

Wall Street Journal columnist Mary Anastasia O’Grady cites a 2016 report by Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas economist Jesus Canas that showed 710,000 U.S. jobs were lost from 1994 to 2014 due to increased imports from Mexico and Canada or shifts in production. However, more competition helped to increase trade, investment and beneficial technological changes. In Texas, exports to Mexico increased by 236 percent during that 20-year span.

Blue-collar workers were impacted by NAFTA, certainly, but Canas found that metropolitan areas of Texas that lost the most jobs also benefited the most from additional foreign investment and from better living standards on the Mexico side of the border – that is, new customers with money.

O’Grady argues that Trump’s plan to “build new barriers to trade with Mexico ignores the harm that is sure to come to the armies of American factory workers, entrepreneurs and suppliers of business services who buy and sell across the border.”

Or put another way, inward-looking policy decisions may wind up hurting the people they’re intended to help.