Last month, President Donald Trump made waves by threatening to impose a tariff on John Deere for moving production to Mexico. Some reactions bordered on hysterical. But as I said in my own letter to John Deere this August, corporations have a duty to their workers and their nation, not just to their shareholders. CEOs are free to outsource American jobs—but policymakers are free not to reward them for doing so.
To understand the debate, you have to understand the history. America became an industrial juggernaut thanks in no small part to common-sense tariffs and trade protections. This kept our country resilient and provided good-paying jobs to millions of people. After the World Wars, however, a coalition of Washington insiders and industry elites began to abandon our protections. They lowered tariffs across the board, and they created trade agreements and programs that offered duty-free treatment to imports from dozens of countries.
Lowering trade barriers makes sense in certain circumstances, namely when the countries in question play by our rules and share our values. But the purpose of any American trade deal should be to strengthen the American economy and make the United States a more attractive place for business—not to incentivize offshoring.
Unfortunately, the abandonment of our trade protection heritage did just that.
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Today, America offshores or outsources roughly 300,000 jobs per year. This allows corporations to skirt their obligation to their workers and the country—decent wages, decent working conditions, investments in productivity—and instead profit from other countries’ lower labor costs.
Meanwhile, according to Forbes, the corresponding “loss of [American] employment opportunities contributes to economic uncertainty, while downward pressure on wages forces workers into lower-income positions.” This hits vulnerable populations hardest, a dynamic that’s been playing out in African American communities for decades. Many prices have fallen, it’s true—but access to cheap goods on Amazon is a bitter consolation for families who can no longer afford necessities like food, housing, and healthcare.
Which brings us back to where we started. Pundits with knee-jerk reactions against President Trump’s proposal need to ask, why should John Deere receive special treatment for outsourcing production? America’s trade deal with Mexico is meant to draw more business to America. If a U.S. firm does the opposite, why should it not be subject to the normal duty rate for members of the World Trade Organization when it sells its products back to the communities it left behind?
That rate is already the world’s lowest standard—by a hefty margin. CEOs who wince at the prospect of paying it demonstrate only indifference to the nation that made them great and a blind devotion to shareholders’ demands for short-term returns over sustainable, long-term investments.
In the coming weeks, I will introduce a bill to cancel trade benefits for companies that offshore production. Its message will be simple: America is done pandering to multinational corporations that value profits more than people.
This is how we ensure our trade deals work for the citizens who elected us to fight for them on the national stage—and it’s how we ensure the American economy remains strong for years and decades to come.
Marco Rubio is a United States senator representing Florida.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
