By FRANK WATSON
Contributor 

Trade wars are not the answer to our problems

Guest Commentary

 

Last updated 4/26/2018 at 10:58am



I admire leaders who surround themselves with very smart people. Good managers use their experts to make their organizations better.

It would seem that President Trump missed that lesson in management class. He has obviously been successful in business, successful enough to fund his own campaign. But managing a private business is different than administrating a government. The profit motive of private business is paramount to all other considerations.

Not so in government. Private business is “for the stockholders.” Governments are “for the people.” CEOs of big companies can rule by dictate and ignore sage advice as long as they make a short-term profit. Ignoring good advice in government provides fodder for political enemies.

“Don’t agree to meet with the North Korean dictator” was good advice. President Trump ignored it.

“Don’t congratulate Putin,” was good advice. President Trump ignored it.

“Don’t get in a trade war with China” is great advice but once again, President Trump knows best, so he ignored it. As long as the stock market was steadily climbing, most of us weren’t too concerned about our president shooting from the lip; but when he threatened our 401Ks, he went too far. A trade war fought with tariffs is short term thinking. We need to think long term and make our industries more competitive.

The labor movement in the U.S evolved such that management and labor are adversaries, and negotiations are a zero-sum game. Employers and unions are constantly trying to improve their position at the expense of the other.

That is not the case in China, Europe or Japan. Daimler and Volkswagen remain competitive in the world market because management and labor are partners and focus on the success of the company. The same is true of Toyota, even with their plant in Atlanta. The United Auto Workers union has been unable to organize there because the workers are part of the team.

Short-term thinking has spawned unions throughout the public sector as well. I lived in

Alaska during a struggle between two rival public employee unions. Each aired repetitive ads promising to rip off state and local agencies better than the other one. I thought to myself, “There is something wrong with this picture.”

I chose to become a teacher after I retired from the Air Force. I wanted to experience that feeling of service to community. That attitude is rare today. Teachers and local school boards are adversaries. Boards try to hold costs down and teachers go on strike. Children are caught in the middle, and no one seems to care. More pay for teachers doesn’t always translate into better education.

The same is true with unions of police, sanitation workers, air traffic controllers and other public employee unions who demand more for themselves at the expense of the public.

We need to reverse this trend and get back to long-term thinking. If Ford Motor Company workers walk out, car buyers purchase from a competitor. Both labor and management suffer in the long term.

We can never win a trade war by hiding non-competitive industries behind a tariff wall. If you want to win, Mr. Trump, make American industry more competitive. You might consider urging labor and management to join forces by restricting unions to the size of their employers.

In other words, Ford would only need negotiate with Ford workers rather than the United Autoworkers of America. Small town school boards would not be bullied by a national association. The local entrepreneur who manufactures tractor parts could team up with his employees rather that fight a world-wide machinist union. It would be a start.

Frank Watson is a retired Air Force Colonel and long-term resident of Eastern Washington. He has been a free lance columnist for over 19 years.

 

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