Intelligence Squared US Audience in New York Sides Overwhelmingly with Team Arguing That “Buy American / Hire American Policies Will Backfire”
NEW YORK-(Business Wire)-September 23, 2009 - Intelligence Squared US (IQ2US), the Oxford-style debate series, an initiative of the Rosenkranz Foundation, announced the results of its first debate of the fall 2009 season, “Buy American / Hire American Policies Will Backfire.” Prior to Monday evening’s debate, the audience seemed inclined to agree with the motion with 57% voting for it, 20% against and 23% undecided and open to persuasion. At the debate’s conclusion, a vast majority of the audience, 72%, sided with the team arguing in favor of the motion, 14% remained against and 14% were still undecided. The final vote was the most lopsided in the three and a half years of IQ2US debates.
Robert Rosenkranz, the founder of IQ2US, welcomed the audience to a new venue, Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, NYU, and he framed the debate by asking an important question about Buy American/Hire American policies. “Which of these is most important,” he asked, “the immediate benefit of U.S. job creation or the cost to U.S. consumers and the risk of retaliatory response from our trading partners?”
The evening’s winning team argued for the motion and included Jagdish Bhagwati, University Professor for Economics and Law at Columbia University and Senior Fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations. He was joined by Douglas Irwin, the Robert E. Maxwell Professor of Arts and Sciences in the Department of Economics at Dartmouth College and Ambassador Susan Schwab, who served as the United States Trade Representative from 2006-2009 and was President George W. Bush’s principal advisor on International Trade and related issues.
On the other side was Leo W. Gerard, International President of the United Steelworkers. He was joined by John R. MacArthur, the President and Publisher of Harper’s Magazine and author of The Selling of Free Trade and Jeff Madrick, a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former Economics Columnist for The New York Times. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis.
Highlights from this debate included:
“Buy America has already backfired because it creates bureaucratic red tape that has forced state and local governments to delay starting infrastructure projects and therefore, delay getting people back to work.” “Many think that Buy America is aimed at China. Well, we aimed at China but we hit Canada and now we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.” — Douglas Irwin
“…if we don’t start buying products that are made here, what we’ll end up doing is borrowing Chinese money to import Chinese parts and have laid-off workers. And the fact of the matter is that Buy America stimulates the economy, creates good jobs, makes the industrial economy work and if the industrial economy works then we need engineers, we need innovation and we need the other pieces that make that economy hum. ”– Leo W. Gerard
“Buy American policies hurt America, and hurt Americans. And we have history to point to and we have, the fact that the United States has to export to grow, to point to, and the fact that the risk of retaliation is very, very real indeed.” – Susan Schwab
“We still have a 25 percent tariff, import tariff on pickup trucks in the United States. That’s why, Toyota, until very recently, was still manufacturing pickups at their … plant in Fremont, California, in their joint operation with General Motors. That’s what kept Toyota in the game… the 25 percent tariff on imported pickups. ” – John R. MacArthur
“…we have the problem of retaliation. And I would say it’s not tit for tat retaliation necessarily, it’s also monkey see, monkey do kind of imitation. While we do something, others do the same thing. If you look at the 1930s it was exactly spreading and diffusion of all kinds of trade barriers, starting out from the Smoot-Hawley. And this, I think, led to essentially what we in economics call a nuclear winter, basically. There was a chaotic outbreak of all kinds of trade barriers. That came home to roost in turn, on our export performance, on everybody’s export performance. And I think this is something we need to remember, that as we go into policies like Buy America that is what we are going to get into.” -Jagdish Bhagwati
“The … narrow motion, Buy American/Hire American …will not have a reverse impact. It’s a rather small issue. What it will do is allow our stimulus to work effectively.” – Jeff Madrick
John Donvan, correspondent for ABC News Nightline, is moderator of Intelligence Squared US debates. Dana Wolfe is the executive producer.
To view transcripts and videos, download audio or learn more about Intelligence Squared U.S. please visit: www.intelligencesquaredus.org.
About Intelligence Squared US:
Launched in September 2006, the goal of Intelligence Squared US, an initiative of the Rosenkranz Foundation, is to raise the level of public discourse and promote a realization that, on contentious issues, those who challenge the conventional wisdom have intellectually respectable and often persuasive viewpoints. We encourage citizens to “Think Twice” about their opinions and participate in the conversation, and we provide a forum for balanced discussion that transcends emotion and ideology. Through an annual series of 10 live Oxford-style debates, IQ2US brings together experts and audience around public policy and cultural issues. In fact, the live audience participates in each debate by voting on the propositions at the top and bottom of the debate evening.
About the Rosenkranz Foundation:
Founded in 1985 by Robert Rosenkranz, the mission of the Rosenkranz Foundation is to encourage fresh perspectives and innovation in public policy, higher education and the arts. Beyond IQ2US, the Foundation pursues its mission by supporting various think tanks, universities, and the arts, with an emphasis on Asian art.
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