So much of the swagger of Republican ideology comes from the patently false idea that the US is alone on this planet. Whether it was George W. Bush’s notion that we could ‘go it alone’ in the Middle East or Trump’s effort to destroy every international agreement (Iran nuclear deal, Paris Climate Accord) and alliance (NATO) we have, Republicans repeatedly mistake isolationism for exceptionalism.

It’s the classic bully problem: to think that your strength comes from waving the biggest stick rather than making friends and winning partners. Call this strategy the long view.

Nowhere is this more true than in trade, so I was especially pleased to see that Beto O’Rourke just issued a trade policy that uses international institutions and new global guidelines to advance trade while at the same time protecting workers and the environment. As Jared Bernstein notes, this isn’t a free trade proposal. It’s a proposal for regulated trade to make sure that everyone shares in the benefits:

“This is managing trade so that its benefits flow to a much more broad set of people.”… O’Rourke’s implicit argument against Trump, and Trumpism, is that we actually can “manage the outcomes of international trade to benefit working people far more than we have in the past.” “Trade flows are good, and the more of them, the better”… provided that those trade flows are no longer managed to channel their benefits to corporations, but rather to workers.

The policy has four planks:

End Trump’s trade war

Defend American values and interests against competitors like China

Pursue trade agreements that support working families

Work to enhance the competitiveness of U.S. workers and small businesses

I want to focus on the second plank because it is radical but would also be fiercely effective. It also says a lot about what an O’Rourke administration would do in re-establishing US global leadership through international institutions. Beto’s thinking like the statesman we should expect from a President.

The proposal calls for re-writing the mandate of the WTO so that it protects the interests of workers, not corporations. Gone are the many-year patent protections for, say, pharmaceutical companies that have led to price gouging and what comes instead are:

· Updating the WTO agreement to tackle currency manipulation, competition, overcapacity, industrial subsidies, and other modern trade issues. These issues are the main obstacles to a level playing field in international trade today and a global body for solving trade disputes needs rules addressing them. · Creating enforceable labor standards. By amending WTO agreements to include the International Labor Organization’s core conventions, Beto would ensure the WTO combats child labor and protects collective bargaining rights. Countries’ failure to uphold these standards would be considered an unfair subsidy and subject to countervailing duties. · Making “sustainable development” an explicit goal of the WTO. This would require that WTO rules be interpreted consistent with this fundamental value and ensure that any national efforts to advance the globally established Sustainable Development Goals should be considered presumptively permissible. · Improving the WTO dispute settlement system. Beto would solve the current impasse over the WTO’s dispute settlement system while ensuring that it respects negotiated outcomes. · Lead a global coalition to stop China’s anti-competitive behavior. Modernizing the WTO is critical for the long-term health of the global trading system. But as it does not have adequate authority or appetite to address the most pressing problems in international trade, Beto will not take action off the table to defend our values and interests.

Beto outlines a series of unilateral actions the US could take if China fails to end currency manipulation, and they are assertive. But the point is we do not have to “go it alone,” and going it alone makes us vulnerable in countless ways. As Beto noted in the second debate, the US has never waged a successful war alone and this includes trade wars.

There’s tons more in the proposal about how to use trade to strengthen labor unions and how to ensure that corporations are subject not just to an international regulatory framework but also to national laws. No corporation can claim supranational status!

What I particularly like is the emphasis on training the American worker to stand at the forefront of the 21st century economy:

· Make a substantial investment in workforce development and training for American workers. As outlined in his plan to support American workers, Beto will provide free community college with credits leading to a four-year degree or high-quality occupational training that is in demand among employers. He will also invest $90 billion to help create 5 million paid apprenticeships linked to good jobs over the next decade and will triple funding for the Department of Labor’s Adult Training programs to $2.4 billion a year to allow more Americans to attend higher quality training programs. Beto will also require publicly traded corporations that boost executive pay to also invest in training for their workers making less than $100,000. · Triple funding for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership to help America’s small and medium-size manufacturers compete in global markets. Beto will increase federal funding from $140 million to $420 million for the Manufacturing Extension Partnership in order to boost the competitiveness of America’s small- and medium-sized manufacturers.

This is not just a trade policy. It’s an industrial policy which has been sorely lacking in the country for decades. (Manufacturing powerhouse Germany has one. We should take a page from their book.)

· Increase and sustain federal funding for the 14 manufacturing innovation institutes, which are public-private partnerships where industry, academia, and government scientists conduct and apply research in advanced manufacturing. Federal funding is limited to just $1 billion over five years at which point private support is intended to fill the gap. · Scale up U.S. federal spending on research and development from its current level of 0.7 percent of GDP so it doubles to the level where it was in the early 1980s. This includes tripling the amount of federal funding for research in Artificial Intelligence, an area where China is mobilizing massive amounts of resources and leaving us behind.

x Beto has a trade plan! There's a lot to like.



First, he advocates for an alternative vision that is neither neoliberalism nor Trumpism. He pledges to end an unproductive trade war, but also put working people and environment at the center, not the margin.https://t.co/fn0VDOJ6mG Ã¢ÂÂ Todd N. Tucker (@toddntucker) August 29, 2019

Greg Sargent observes in The Washington Post that it’s the multilateral nature of this proposal that makes it bold and unique:

This is the sweet spot for those who want to end the trade war with China, but also want to do something about the Chinese trade practices that are unfair, which O’Rourke denotes as “currency manipulation, subsidies, restrictions on market access, corporate espionage and other strategies."

Dan Drezner could scarcely contain his exuberance:

x IÃ¢ÂÂve only read the first paragraph so far but Beto is now my favorite candidate donÃ¢ÂÂt @ me. https://t.co/l1J6tXMkJX pic.twitter.com/ie6QBo4kDH Ã¢ÂÂ Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) August 30, 2019

Here’s the link to Beto’s Trade for America and 21st Century Labor Contract.

A multilateral approach is what we need after Wrecking Ball Trump. Donate to Beto’s campaign. Get involved!

**UPDATE**

Laura Clawson posted an excellent diary highlighting the steps Beto would take to counter China’s unfair trade practices on a domestic front.