Trade Is Not a Four-Letter Word: How Six Everyday Products Make the Case for Trade

While I had been looking for a technical analysis of trade relationships and agreements, the author’s background and the book’s product-based premise seemed to make for a good read.The first fifty pages or so cover useful definitions and an interesting synopsis of U.S. trade history. Hochberg’s tone and style are relatively objective throughout these early sections. Yet when he gets to NAFTA, the irrelevant and odious language of “wokeness” starts to creep in. Without a word of evidence, the author claims that the protection of certain industrial businesses – he references steel and coal – is due to “white male privilege.” Seriously? Steel is used as a trade bargaining chip not because of its importance in auto production or other industries but because steelworkers are all white men? If Hochberg had any evidence that coal miners enjoy “white male privilege” he should have provided it. It is ludicrous, empty political commentary that detracts from the overall narrative.The liberal talking points pick up further when he turns to Donald Trump. He makes clear his disdain for Trump personally as well as for his views on trade and abrogation of the TPP. Fair enough: Trump’s trade policies are controversial across the political spectrum. He does give the president backhanded credit for structuring the USMCA to accomplish “with Canada and Mexico” what the author believes the TPP was doing with Asia. And in Myth #8, he allows that Trump addresses certain trade issues that are legitimately adverse to the U.S. But he drops in other bits that make you question his perspective, such as emphasizing how the TPP reduced tariffs on wind turbines and solar panels. [And the percentage of our national manufacturing output these two products represent goes to what decimal place?] Also: unless I missed it, when discussing China in the early sections Hochberg never mentions that it is a communist dictatorship.But on p. 86, Hochberg presents the kind of offensive and unsubstantiated trope that we hear almost daily from the far left: that Donald Trump is an anti-Semite and a racist. Trump criticizes globalism and this critique “has become increasingly mired in explicit nationalism, implicit anti-Semitism, and anti-immigrant and anti-minority sentiments.” Get it? Because he puts the U.S. first, wink-wink Trump is a racist and worse. Thanks, hadn’t heard this entirely unsubstantiated nonsense before. And then: “Hmm…what do these three people…happen to have in common?” on Trump’s criticism of three prominent Jewish financial figures. Wow. Did Hochberg hand this paragraph off to some college freshman at Berkeley? Have any actual evidence of Trump’s anti-Semitism (or racism or any other –ism), Mr. Hochberg? You’re aware Trump’s daughter converted to Judaism to get married, yes? That he is an emphatic supported of Israel? But of course, among today’s left actual evidence doesn’t matter at all. It’s Donald Trump and we say it is so. Give me a break.I’m an independent who by no means supports everything the president says or does but Hochberg’s insults are pathetic and gratuitous, not to mention completely irrelevant to his subject and just plain tiresome. This book is supposed to be about trade. Is there some shortage of anti-Trump literature I’m unaware of? It’s disturbing that liberals can’t seem to write a sentence without referencing Donald Trump’s hideous transgressions. Sort of a cultish obsession, no? Then again I suppose the book is meant to suit that audience. In truth, Hochberg’s divergence into petty irrelevancies reveals a lack of perspective that degrades the book and leaves you doubting the value of whatever he has to say about trade.

A tariff is a tax, says author Hochberg in his humorous style, on importers and costumers of the country imposing the tariffs. Hochberg is a free trader. He notes that the entire industrial world needs parts and products from many countries to make products in their own country, automobiles being just one example he discusses. An American-made car is a pastiche of parts from several American small businesses as well as parts ftom foreign countries. And so it is with so many products we buy.In a tariff war there will always be winners and losers. A tariff imposed by, say, the United States, might benefit one industry but be detrimental to another domestic industry. So the benefitted industry adds jobs and opens more plants, but the disadvantaged industry closes plants and reduces its work force. So tariffs have to be evaluated on that basis. The author is clearly biased against President Trump's trade and tariff policies, not that some of his criticisms aren't justified. But the politically biased overtones is what caused me to give four, rather than five, stars for this review.Nonetheless, this book is well worth reading. You'll see trade in a different light. I sure do.

Just a fabulous book. My favorite parts were the product storylines, where the author walks through how products are made and the benefits of economic integration between nations. But the policy discussions are also thoughtful and informative. Above all, I found the book measured. Not a lot of books today that don't fit neatly into one "lane" or another, but this was balanced, independent, and measured.I would consider it an excellent companion book to Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge's book, Capitalism in America. That book is an economic history of America. This book fills in details on how trade policy was a critical component of that history, and discusses what we need to do moving forward.It is really a joy to read. I highly recommend.

Don't read this book to learn about trade, Fred Hochberg's lucid and elegant explanation of this subject notwithstanding. Don't read it as a history lesson, even though you might not have been aware of the role of tariffs as one of the causes of the Civil War. Don't read it as political commentary, but it is fascinating how the two American political parties keep switching their positions on protectionism. Don't read it to understand how the American and world economies actually work. And finally, don't--don't--read it for insights into the psychology of trade, though the argument that in this arena we need to create or imagine enemies is persuasive.No, read "Trade Is Not a Four Letter Word" for entertainment. Hochberg is a natural storyteller, who weaves economic data into a compelling narrative. No small accomplishment, that. With cameo appearances by the likes of Marco Polo and Hamlet, larger roles for American presidents from Jefferson to Lincoln to Trump, and brief detours referencing, in one chapter baseball, and in another a poem by Pablo Neruda, a dry subject becomes vibrantly human. And everywhere: humor. Even the charts, always glaze-over territory, can be funny. In one, with a line that goes from the upper left on the chart to the lower right that shows the manufacturing share of employment, the caption reads: "NAFTA: a trade deal so devastating it started to destroy manufacturing jobs forty years before it came into existence."Yes, this book is about trade. And it's a great read. Who knew?

The author makes the case for trade by considering six products where trade has helped us all (just about), ranging from the banana (the one dubious case - it seems to have involved a lot of exploiting Central American nations) through the iPhone to Game of Thrones and degrees and standards of environmental protection/social protection.These parts of the book are strong and interesting; as is the history of tariffs and how trade negotiations are always part of a bigger game of political realpolitik, often involving a 'villain' nation. The discussion of how tariffs don't work in the modern world - the impact of US tariffs on foreign steel is one case-study - also repay attention; as does discussion of the nature of a modern trade deal, such as TTP - and the 'myths' that surround trade (I particularly liked the discussion of the author's balance of payment deficit with his barber).Where the book is lacking is in a real understanding of just how and where trade can also hurt some of us quite a lot (it is acknowledged, but is not so much part of the author's worldview as is the world of trade) - I recollect the discussion of shoe imports to the US in Good Economics for Bad Times - big impacts on local communities so that customers can enjoy just somewhat lower prices on these goods....And the policy prescriptions to counter these ill effects are discussed, but also don't seem all that convincing....I was also left asking myself - even in relation to the 6 products discussed at length in the book - how far we are looking at trade here (pretty much a given, perhaps), how far we are looking at tariffs and trade policy (very much a political decision). Is the iPhone about tariffs or could it ever be about tariffs; or could seasonal produce ever be about tariffs and trade policy? Obviously government policy impacts eg University degrees - but as the example of Trump putting off foreign students from the USA makes clear, this isn't really just through a direct 'trade style' intervention in a particular policy are but can also be part of a 'bigger picture'.Still I enjoyed reading this a lot; and would recommend it to others.

Most books about global trade are tedious and turgid. This book is totally the opposite - it is a fantastic good read and enlightening. It is different from any other book on trade that I have certainly read, and even though I have been involved in trade finance for the past 30 years - I still learnt a lot. But above all, this is a fun read and the author Fred Hochberg - by far the best chairman the US Exim Bank ever had - has come up with a uniquely interesting way of entertaining us on many aspects of international trade.Uniquely, he takes 6 products (eg the iphone, bananas, etc) as a core part of the book and analyses how these are traded and just what impact they have in the great scheme of things. Similarly, he does a great round of myth busting around trade examining tariffs, the historical and political atmosphere around trade, trade agreements, trade as a win-win, trade wars and even providing an unexpected report on some of the Trump-inspired trade actions. As Hochberg rightly says politics surround trade just about at every level. Its how we all deal with it that really matters. And above all Hochberg rams home the message that we need to care more about trade because it involves us all in so many different ways. This book is a definite must read.

Truly spectacular, covering multiple industries and economic sectors that help to fully understand how international trade works. I am a researcher of different industries and found some parts extremely useful. The writing style is engaging and one can easily say that the person who wrote it has perfect business acumen.

A quite pleasant book to read. I am pleased.