Globalization and American Trade Policy

            On Tuesday April 1, 2008, I attended a lecture regarding Globalization and American Trade Policy by guest speaker Donna Lee.  Donna Lee started the talk by describing what she felt the term globalization meant.  I believe the term of globalization to mean many different things in regards to what topic you are talking about.  For example globalization of trade is different then globalization of technology.  For this reason, Donna Lee stated that she believed that there was no clear definition for globalization even though it has been such a popular term over the past decade.  This talk focused on the Globalization (or lack thereof) in the world today.  Donna Lee brought up a very interesting point in that problems should be looked at globally.  I thought this was true because we are all living together on this earth, and because of that we are interconnected.  This is particularly true in regards to environmental issues such as global warming.  Although I live in Chico California, I should still think about how my actions affect everyone in the world, not just people who live in a close proximity to me.

While Donna Lee discussed the presence of globalization in areas such as environmental problems and technology, she argued that trade, on the other hand, was not global.  She backed up this theory by providing statistics of how much more trade occurred in between continents or “blocks” then globally.  She believed this to be true because of how exclusive these blocks were in terms of trade policies and tariffs. Although I agree with this, I don’t think that this is the sole cause of the lack of globalization in the world of trade.  I think it is simply cheaper to import/export goods from a neighboring country then from the other side of the world.  However, I am by no means a economic scholar, so in this case, I would trust the expert.

            The last thing that Donna Lee talked to us about was the huge result of American farming subsidies in regards to the global market.  I found this very interesting because of how many people were affected by a perfect example of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.  The example that Donna Lee used to express her point was the global cotton industry.  Many African nations export cotton as their main cash crop.  However they are not able to make very much money because of how the American subsidies affect the price of cotton.  Donna Lee stated that if the subsidies were removed, and a true global free market was put in place, ten million Africans would be able to move above the poverty line.  This seems like a huge number to me, and at very little cost.  However I know that every argument has two sides and I would like to hear why these subsidies are in place, and how the removal of these subsidies would affect our economy, as well as me as a poor college student here in Chico.