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CNN Panel Debate Donald Trump DAPL & Mexican Wall Rant

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Trump Trump Administration Releases Map Of Proposed Border

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Who will REALLY pay for Trump's Border Wall?

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The Trump administration announced today that it would pay for the wall along the Mexican border by imposing a 20% "border tax" on all imports crossing from Mexico into the US. In this lesson I'll examine the true cost of this tax on American households and answer the question, who will REALLY pay for Trump's wall?

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About this unit

This unit begins the study of product markets: the markets for the goods and services produced. In this unit, you will begins the study of product markets, focusing on the supply and demand model. Students will be introduced to the determinants of demand and supply, market equilibrium, and how changes in equilibrium occur when supply and demand change. Then, build on the supply and demand model to deepen your economics toolkit with the concepts of elasticity, consumer and producer surplus, and the impact of government policies.

AP® is a registered trademark of the College Board, which has not reviewed this resource.

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Supply and Demand | AP®︎/College Microeconomics | Economics | Khan Academy

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This unit begins the study of product markets: the markets for the goods and services produced. In this unit, you will begins the study of product markets, focusing on the supply and demand model. Students will be introduced to the determinants of demand and supply, market equilibrium, and how changes in equilibrium occur when supply and demand change.

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In a mesmerizing recent article, Mother Jones' Tim Murphy recounts the surprising backstory of one of corporate marketing's greatest flops: Coca-Cola's quickly aborted 1985 effort to tweak its formula and convince consumers to accept "New Coke."

Tim Murphy is on this week's episode of Bite, talking about New Coke and doing a blind taste-test:

The piece ends with a twist I didn't see coming (spoiler alert). Gay Mullins, the eccentric Oregonian who launched a crusade to restore the old formula, wasn't satisfied when the beverage giant caved in to his demand. Soon after the restoration of Coke Classic, Mullins held a press conference to complain that it tasted differently from the Coke he remembered, because it was made with corn syrup. He declared he "would not rest until Coke was once more made with real sugar," Murphy reports.

Mullins' "pivot to high-fructose agitation" turned out to be as much of a bust as the New Coke he helped kill. Coca-Cola had already started adding high-fructose corn syrup to the mix five years before the New Coke fiasco. By 1984, a year before New Coke's debut, the switch was complete: sugar out, HFCS in. "Mullins hoped that by joining the pile-on, he might entice the trade association to cut him in on some profits," Murphy writes. "We were interested in being supported by the Sugar Association," Mullins admitted.

How did high-fructose corn syrup take over for sugar as the soda industry's sweetener of choice, anyway?
While corn subsidies play a role in the story, another, less-famous government intervention played an even bigger role.
The conventional story, laid out by Huffington Post's Julia Thompson in 2013, goes like this: "Nearly 30 years ago, Coca-Cola switched over from sugar to high-fructose corn syrup to sweeten America's beloved carbonated soft drink. With corn subsidized by the government, its sugary syrup became a more affordable option for the beverage company." So: corn subsidies begat cheap corn, which in turn lead to a corn-derived sweetener cheaper than sugar. Voila: HFCS takes over the soda market.

But while corn subsidies played a role in the story, another, less-famous government intervention likely played an even bigger role. The tale-which I first saw laid out in Richard Manning's excellent 2005 book Against the Grain-started in the early 1971, when a massive, surprise sale of US grain to the Soviet Union triggered a boom in corn prices, which in turn led to a massive ramp-up in corn planting. By the mid-'70s, corn prices had returned to earth; but buoyed by subsidies, farmers kept planting "fencerow to fencerow," as then-department of agriculture chief Earl Butz put it. The result: massive overproduction of corn. (The current corn glut, on the heels of the ethanol-driven boom of 2006-2012, followed a similar pattern.)

Corn-processing giants like Archer Daniels Midland had access to all the cheap corn they could ever want, but could only make a profit with it if they could find new markets for corn products. The company came up with two big ideas: ethanol, designed to disrupt the massive gasoline market; and high-fructose corn syrup, which the company hoped would break up Big Sugar's hold on the soda industry.

They're related, because both involve a process called "wet-milling" that isolates corn's starch. To make ethanol, you ferment the starch and distill it into pure alcohol. To make HFCS, y ou add an enzyme to the starch that transforms some of its glucose into fructose-producing something with a sweetness profile similar to sugar. A single wet-milling plant could make both, and ADM began investing big in wet-milling in the early 1970s, a time when high gasoline and sugar prices offered opportunity for cheaper substitutes.
Like a Midwestern Machiavelli, Andreas came up with an ingenious plan.
The company was led by an industry titan named Dwayne Andreas (vintage 1995 Mother Jones profile of him here). Hailed by PBS's Frontline as "perhaps America's champion all-time campaign contributor," Andreas gained legendary status as a political double-dealer during the Watergate investigations, when congressional hearings revealed that he was the source of the $25,000 used by Richard Nixon's "plumbers" to finance the 1972 famous hotel break-in. From the same investigation, it emerged that in 1968, Andreas had illegally donated $100,000 to Minnesota Sen. Hubert Humphrey-Nixon's Democratic opponent in that year's election, and a longtime Andreas favorite.

Despite political machinations that led to large production subsidies, the ethanol boom Andreas hoped for didn't materialize until the mid-aughts, mainly because gasoline prices plunged after reaching dizzying heights in the mid-'70s. High-fructose corn syrup got off to a rough start, too. In a seminal 1995 paper on ADM's vaunted ability to get what it needed from Andreas' friends in government, James Bovard of the libertarian Cato Institute reports:

ADM got into corn fructose production very heavily around 1974, just as sugar prices peaked on world markets. After ADM invested heavily to increase its capacity to produce high-fructose corn syrup ninefold, sugar prices plummeted from 65 cents to 8 cents per pound.

The reason: inexpensive foreign imports had driven down the sugar price. As a result, ADM could not make high-fructose corn syrup cheaply enough to compete. To overcome this obstacle, ADM succeeded not in the lab but rather in the political arena. Like a Midwestern Machiavelli, Andreas came up with an ingenious plan: support lobbying efforts by Florida sugarcane growers to convince Congress to impose a quota on foreign-produced sugar.

In 1981, Andreas got his wish. Newly elected President Ronald Reagan-another close ally of the ADM chief-signed a law placing high quotas on imported sugar, which quickly raised the domestic price of sugar to twice the price on global markets. Suddenly, HFCS was the cheaper sweetener, and the quota ensured that the domestic sugar price would remain elevated. Both Coke and Pepsi quickly started using more HFCS, Bovard reports.

In 1984-the year before New Coke's launch-both companies publicly announced they had had made the switch. A Wall Street exec hailed the development as "exciting news for the corn millers," the New York Times reported. He added: "They've committed large sums over the last decade to improving their products to gain these approvals, and now they're going to get the payoffs. The industry's outlook is good for next year and spectacular for 1986."

Use of the corn sweetener took off. Note the big jump in the first half of the '80s:

A decade later, HFCS was still riding high and Archer Daniels Midland remained the "driving force behind the sugar lobby in this year's battle over the future of the sugar program," Bovard reports, adding that the company "heavily bankrolled" Big Sugar's ad campaign defending the quotas that year.

Andreas retired in 1999 and died in 2016, inspiring awed obituaries. The sugar quotas he championed remain in place. These days, corn syrup's star has dimmed. The processed food industry has largely turned away from HFCS, as it became associated with empty calories and weight gain (there's little evidence it's any worse than sugar on those fronts). Cola sales have been declining for years, but Coke and Pepsi still use HFCS in their flagship products.

Gay Mullins, the star of Murphy's New Coke saga, brought a gigantic soft drink brand to its knees, but he was no match for Andreas, this "secretive, freewheeling Minnesota businessman," in the words of a 1978 New York Times piece, "[who] trades soybeans, buys banks, and finances politicians-all with apparently equal zest."

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The secret history of why soda companies switched from sugar to high-fructose corn syrup

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In a mesmerizing recent article, Mother Jones' Tim Murphy recounts the surprising backstory of one of corporate marketing's greatest flops: Coca-Cola's quickly aborted 1985 effort to tweak its formula and convince consumers to accept "New Coke."

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APMic U2 L6 - International Trade and Public Policy

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APMic Unit 2 Lesson 6 - International Trade and Public Policy

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Start studying APMic Unit 2 Lesson 6 - International Trade and Public Policy. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools.

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1. What are quantity controls, and how can quantity controls create problems and make a market inefficient?

2.  What determines whether a country imports or exports a good?

3. Who wins and who loses from international trade?

4. Do the gains to winners from international trade always exceed the losses to losers?

5. Can you explain the welfare effects of tariffs and import quotas.

6. What arguments do people use to advocate for trade restrictions?

7. Use the labeling from the graph below to identify the following:

equilibrium price and quantity before trade occurs

equilibrium price and quantity after trade occurs

producer surplus before and after imposition of a tariff (Pt-Pw).

consumer surplus before and after imposition of the tariff.

the tax wedge as a result of the tariff.

deadweight loss after the tariff.

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Define tariffs and quotas.

Explain (using graphs where appropriate) how markets are affected by public policy related to international trade.

Calculate (using data from a graph or table as appropriate) changes in market outcomes resulting from public policy related to international trade.

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Government policies influence consumer and producer behavior and therefore affect market outcomes.

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Equilibria in competitive markets may be altered by the decision to open an economy to trade with other countries; equilibrium price can be higher or lower than under autarky, and the gap between domestic supply and demand is filled by trade. Opening an economy to trade with other countries affects consumer surplus, producer surplus, and total economic surplus.

Tariffs, which governments sometimes use to influence international trade, affect domestic price, quantity, government revenue, and consumer surplus and total economic surplus.

Quotas can be used to alter quantities produced and therefore affect price, consumer surplus, and total economic surplus.

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If there is a huge disparity in production costs (largely labor) in the US vs much of the developing world, isn't the implication that employment in the US (or any developed nation) will drop, or wages will drop dramatically? Essentially, short of a few items with technical barriers to being produced elsewhere, anything that CAN be produced elsewhere WILL be produced elsewhere. Combined with mass immigration, this then becomes a situation where any job that CAN be done by an immigrant at a lower wage WILL be. Where does this leave lower skill US workers? My conclusion is that they become socialists who simply vote themselves the wages and benefits they are no longer earning through jobs.

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Tariffs and Protectionism | Microeconomics Videos

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If there is a huge disparity in production costs (largely labor) in the US vs much of the developing world, isn't the implication that employment in the US (or any developed nation) will drop, or wages will drop dramatically?

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International trade increases the number of goods that domestic consumers can choose from, decreases the cost of those goods through increased competition, and allows domestic industries to ship their products abroad. While all of these effects seem beneficial, free trade isn't widely accepted as completely beneficial to all parties.

In fact, President Trump's 2016 presidential campaign was highly critical of free trade agreements.﻿﻿ In 2018, the Trump administration introduced billions of dollars in new tariffs on Chinese imports and threatened tariffs on other countries.﻿﻿ China retaliated by announcing tariffs on U.S. imported goods, including steel and pork.﻿﻿ Trump also introduced tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from the European Union, Mexico, and Canada in 2018.﻿﻿ Later that year, China announced a 25% tariff on $16 billion worth of U.S. goods, including vehicles and crude oil, in retaliation for the U.S. tariffs on $16 billion worth of Chinese goods. "This is tit-for-tat exactly," Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley FBR told CNBC. "Our $16 billion comes at a scheduled time. China said we see your $16 billion and we'll match your $16 billion."﻿﻿

This article will examine how some countries react to a variety of factors that attempt to influence trade.

Who Collects a Tariff?

In simplest terms, a tariff is a tax. It adds to the cost borne by consumers of imported goods and is one of several trade policies that a country can enact. Tariffs are paid to the customs authority of the country imposing the tariff. Tariffs on imports coming into the United States, for example, are collected by Customs and Border Protection, acting on behalf of the Commerce Department.﻿﻿ ﻿﻿ In the U.K., it's HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) that collects the money.

It is important to recognize that the taxes owed on imports are paid by domestic consumers and not imposed directly on the foreign country's exports.﻿﻿ The effect is nonetheless to make foreign products relatively more expensive for consumers, but if manufacturers rely on imported components or other inputs in their production process, they will also pass the increased cost on to consumers.

Often, goods from abroad are cheaper because they offer cheaper capital or labor costs; if those goods become more expensive, then consumers will choose the relatively costlier domestic product. Overall, consumers tend to lose out with tariffs, where the taxes are collected domestically.

Why Are Tariffs and Trade Barriers Used?

Tariffs are often created to protect infant industries and developing economies but are also used by more advanced economies with developed industries.﻿﻿ ﻿﻿ Here are five of the top reasons tariffs are used:

Protecting Domestic Employment

The levying of tariffs is often highly politicized. The possibility of increased competition from imported goods can threaten domestic industries. These domestic companies may fire workers or shift production abroad to cut costs, which means higher unemployment and a less happy electorate.

The unemployment argument often shifts to domestic industries complaining about cheap foreign labor, and how poor working conditions and lack of regulation allow foreign companies to produce goods more cheaply. In economics, however, countries will continue to produce goods until they no longer have a comparative advantage (not to be confused with an absolute advantage).

Protecting Consumers

A government may levy a tariff on products that it feels could endanger its population. For example, South Korea may place a tariff on imported beef from the United States if it thinks that the goods could be tainted with a disease.

Infant Industries

The use of tariffs to protect infant industries can be seen by the Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) strategy employed by many developing nations. The government of a developing economy will levy tariffs on imported goods in industries in which it wants to foster growth. This increases the prices of imported goods and creates a domestic market for domestically produced goods while protecting those industries from being forced out by more competitive pricing. It decreases unemployment and allows developing countries to shift from agricultural products to finished goods.

Criticisms of this sort of protectionist strategy revolve around the cost of subsidizing the development of infant industries. If an industry develops without competition, it could wind up producing lower quality goods, and the subsidies required to keep the state-backed industry afloat could sap economic growth.

National Security

Barriers are also employed by developed countries to protect certain industries that are deemed strategically important, such as those supporting national security. Defense industries are often viewed as vital to state interests, and often enjoy significant levels of protection. For example, while both Western Europe and the United States are industrialized, both are very protective of defense-oriented companies.

Retaliation

Countries may also set tariffs as a retaliation technique if they think that a trading partner has not played by the rules. For example, if France believes that the United States has allowed its wine producers to call its domestically produced sparkling wines "Champagne" (a name specific to the Champagne region of France) for too long, it may levy a tariff on imported meat from the United States. If the U.S. agrees to crack down on the improper labeling, France is likely to stop its retaliation. Retaliation can also be employed if a trading partner goes against the government's foreign policy objectives.

Common Types of Tariffs

There are several types of tariffs and barriers that a government can employ:

Specific Tariffs

A fixed fee levied on one unit of an imported good is referred to as a specific tariff. This tariff can vary according to the type of goods imported. For example, a country could levy a $15 tariff on each pair of shoes imported, but levy a $300 tariff on each computer imported.

Ad Valorem Tariffs

The phrase "ad valorem" is Latin for "according to value," and this type of tariff is levied on a good based on a percentage of that good's value. An example of an ad valorem tariff would be a 15% tariff levied by Japan on U.S. automobiles. The 15% is a price increase on the value of the automobile, so a $10,000 vehicle now costs $11,500 to Japanese consumers. This price increase protects domestic producers from being undercut but also keeps prices artificially high for Japanese car shoppers.

Non-Tariff Barriers to Trade

A license is granted to a business by the government and allows the business to import a certain type of good into the country. For example, there could be a restriction on imported cheese, and licenses would be granted to certain companies allowing them to act as importers. This creates a restriction on competition and increases prices faced by consumers.

Import Quotas

An import quota is a restriction placed on the amount of a particular good that can be imported. This sort of barrier is often associated with the issuance of licenses. For example, a country may place a quota on the volume of imported citrus fruit that is allowed.

Voluntary Export Restraints (VER)

This type of trade barrier is "voluntary" in that it is created by the exporting country rather than the importing one. A voluntary export restraint (VER) is usually levied at the behest of the importing country and could be accompanied by a reciprocal VER. For example, Brazil could place a VER on the exportation of sugar to Canada, based on a request by Canada. Canada could then place a VER on the exportation of coal to Brazil. This increases the price of both coal and sugar but protects the domestic industries.

Local Content Requirement

Instead of placing a quota on the number of goods that can be imported, the government can require that a certain percentage of a good be made domestically. The restriction can be a percentage of the good itself or a percentage of the value of the good. For example, a restriction on the import of computers might say that 25% of the pieces used to make the computer are made domestically, or can say that 15% of the value of the good must come from domestically produced components.

In the final section, we'll examine who benefits from tariffs and how they affect the price of goods.

Who Benefits from Tariffs?

The benefits of tariffs are uneven. Because a tariff is a tax, the government will see increased revenue as imports enter the domestic market. Domestic industries also benefit from a reduction in competition, since import prices are artificially inflated.

Unfortunately for consumers-both individual consumers and businesses-higher import prices mean higher prices for goods. If the price of steel is inflated due to tariffs, individual consumers pay more for products using steel, and businesses pay more for steel that they use to make goods. In short, tariffs and trade barriers tend to be pro-producer and anti-consumer.

The effect of tariffs and trade barriers on businesses, consumers, and the government shifts over time. In the short run, higher prices for goods can reduce consumption by individual consumers and by businesses. During this period, some businesses will profit, and the government will see an increase in revenue from duties.

In the long term, these businesses may see a decline in efficiency due to a lack of competition, and may also see a reduction in profits due to the emergence of substitutes for their products. For the government, the long-term effect of subsidies is an increase in the demand for public services, since increased prices, especially in foodstuffs, leave less disposable income.

How Do Tariffs Affect Prices?

Tariffs increase the prices of imported goods. Because of this, domestic producers are not forced to reduce their prices from increased competition, and domestic consumers are left paying higher prices as a result. Tariffs also reduce efficiencies by allowing companies that would not exist in a more competitive market to remain open.

The figure below illustrates the effects of world trade without the presence of a tariff. In the graph, DS means domestic supply and DD means domestic demand. The price of goods at home is found at price P, while the world price is found at P*. At a lower price, domestic consumers will consume Qw worth of goods, but because the home country can only produce up to Qd, it must import Qw-Qd worth of goods.

When a tariff or other price-increasing policy is put in place, the effect is to increase prices and limit the volume of imports. In the figure below, price increases from the non-tariff P* to P'. Because the price has increased, more domestic companies are willing to produce the good, so Qd moves right. This also shifts Qw left. The overall effect is a reduction in imports, increased domestic production, and higher consumer prices.

Tariffs and Modern Trade

The role tariffs play in international trade has declined in modern times. One of the primary reasons for the decline is the introduction of international organizations designed to improve free trade, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO).﻿﻿ Such organizations make it more difficult for a country to levy tariffs and taxes on imported goods, and can reduce the likelihood of retaliatory taxes. Because of this, countries have shifted to non-tariff barriers, such as quotas and export restraints.

Organizations like the WTO attempt to reduce production and consumption distortions created by tariffs. These distortions are the result of domestic producers making goods due to inflated prices, and consumers purchasing fewer goods because prices have increased.

Since the 1930s, many developed countries have reduced tariffs and trade barriers, which has improved global integration and brought about globalization. Multilateral agreements between governments increase the likelihood of tariff reduction, while enforcement of binding agreements reduces uncertainty.

The Bottom Line

Free trade benefits consumers through increased choice and reduced prices, but because the global economy brings with it uncertainty, many governments impose tariffs and other trade barriers to protect the industry. There is a delicate balance between the pursuit of efficiencies and the government's need to ensure low unemployment.

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The Basics Of Tariffs and Trade Barriers

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International trade increases the number of goods that domestic consumers can choose from, decreases the cost of those goods through increased competition, and allows domestic industries to ship their products abroad. While all of these effects seem beneficial, free trade isn't widely accepted as completely beneficial to all parties.

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Tariffs are essentially taxes or duties placed on an imported good or service by a domestic government, making domestic goods cheaper for domestic consumers and imported goods more expensive for companies exporting goods from their industry into the domestic industry.

Tariffs are normally levied by a domestic government as a percentage of the declared value of the good or service and act similar to a sales tax. Unlike sales tax, however, tariff rates often vary depending on the good or service and do not apply to domestic goods, only imports coming into the domestic industry.

When high tariffs are levied by a domestic government, it reduces the imports of a given product or service because the high tariff leads to a higher price for the domestic consumer and a higher import cost for foreign suppliers or producers. Tariffs are also used to create favorable trading conditions between certain countries, while hampering the trading conditions of other countries.

There are two general types of tariffs levied by domestic governments: ad valorem tax and a specific tariff. Ad valorem tax is a percentage of the value of the good or service, while a specific tariff is a tax based on a set fee per number of items or weight of the items.

Tariffs are usually levied by domestic governments to protect new industries against foreign competition, to protect aging industries against foreign competition, to protect against foreign companies offering their products for a price lower than their costs and to raise revenue.

Do Tariffs Protect Infant Industries?

Many development policy analysts and industry-specific advocates argue it's sometimes necessary to implement import tariffs to protect infant domestic industries from foreign competitors. This argument has existed for centuries: Adam Smith, for example, directly advocated for it in The Wealth of Nations, but in practice, infant industry techniques have a poor track record. There are many possible explanations for this, some economic and some political.

The infant industry argument does not extend to all types of producers. Industries requiring high economic capital have the most apparent need for state protection from foreign competition. This is because manufacturing and technological production is important to building long-term economic growth, yet establishing these types of firms is both risky and time consuming.

Even though it likely results in forcing local consumers to pay a higher price for domestic goods, proponents of this theory suggest that the initial disadvantages are outweighed by future gains. However, potential success stories are few and far between. Economists disagree about the importance of tariffs in developing markets in the United States, Germany and Japan during their respective industrialization periods. Similar tariffs have been tried for key industries in India, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Hong Kong with very poor results.

One common criticism is that protectionism only works if the domestic firms are well-run and if other government laws allow for sustained growth. Companies still require access to capital and competitive tax rates. Additionally, other countries may respond by instituting their own sanctions. Others have theorized that development only occurs where there are gains from trade and that tariffs distort trade, investment and consumption too much for those gains to be realized.

(For more, see: The Basics of Tariffs and Trade Barriers.)

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How do tariffs protect domestic industries?

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Tariffs are essentially taxes or duties placed on an imported good or service by a domestic government, making domestic goods cheaper for domestic consumers and imported goods more expensive for companies exporting goods from their industry into the domestic industry.

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A tariff is a tax imposed by a governing authority on goods or services entering or leaving the country and is typically focused on a specified industry or product. It is meant to alter the balance of trade between the tariff-imposing country and its international trading partners. For example, when a government imposes an import tariff, it adds to the cost of importing the specified goods or services. The additional marginal cost added by the tariff discourages imports, thus affecting the balance of trade.

There are various reasons a government may choose to impose a tariff. The most common examples of rationale used to justify tariffs are protection for nascent industries, national defense purposes, supporting domestic employment, combating aggressive trade policies and environmental reasons.

Infant Industries

Tariffs are commonly used to protect an early-stage domestic industry from international competition. The tariff acts as an incubator that, in theory, should allow the domestic industry ample time to develop and grow into a competitive position on an international landscape.

National Defense

If a particular segment of the economy provides critical products with respect to national defense, a government may impose tariffs on international competition to support and secure domestic production in the event of a conflict.

Domestic Employment

It is common for government economic policies to focus on creating an environment where constituents have robust employment opportunities. If a domestic segment or industry is struggling to compete against international competitors, the government may use tariffs to discourage consumption of imports and encourage consumption of domestic goods in hopes of supporting associated job growth. (For related reading, see: Do Cheap Imported Goods Cost Americans Jobs?)

Aggressive Trade Practices

International competitors may employ aggressive trade tactics such as flooding the market in an attempt to gain market share and put domestic producers out of business. Governments may use tariffs to mitigate the effects of foreign entities employing what may be considered unfair tactics.

Environmental Concerns

Governments may use tariffs to diminish consumption of international goods that do not adhere to certain environmental standards.

(For related reading, see: The Basics of Tariffs and Trade Barriers.)

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What are common reasons for governments to implement tariffs?

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A tariff is a tax imposed by a governing authority on goods or services entering or leaving the country and is typically focused on a specified industry or product. It is meant to alter the balance of trade between the tariff-imposing country and its international trading partners.

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The economics profession is very open to competition from abroad--there are very few barriers, for example, to hire an Econ PhD from anywhere in the world and most departments have lots of foreign born PhDs on staff. Thus, competition from abroad for American economists has been very high. In essence, there is free trade in Econ PhDs. Whether this has hurt American PhDs I don't know but it has probably pushed wages down.

Most jobs today are in the service sector and it is here that American low skill workers can outcompete foreign low skill workers. It is, of course, true that low skill workers everywhere tend to earn low wages.

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Arguments Against International Trade | Microeconomics Videos

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The economics profession is very open to competition from abroad--there are very few barriers, for example, to hire an Econ PhD from anywhere in the world and most departments have lots of foreign born PhDs on staff. Thus, competition from abroad for American economists has been very high.

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Supply and Demand with International Trade- Micro Topic 2.9