Would Trump's trade threats work? Many experts are skeptical

By attacking trade agreements, the Republican presidential front-runner is channeling the belief, common among many of this year's angry voters, that foreign competition is robbing American jobs and shrinking wages.

Trump, author of the 1987 best-seller "The Art of the Deal," argues that American negotiators are snookered by smarter deal-makers in China, Mexico and Japan who manage to penetrate the U.S. market without granting equal access to their own.

Trade deals usually have little overall effect on jobs — positive or negative — partly because the American economy is already open to foreign competition.

Bigger forces such as huge wage gaps between the United States and developing countries, and automation that lets companies replace workers, play a much larger role in job losses.

Trade agreements always have a small net effect on jobs.

Economists at the Peterson Institute think the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a pending deal involving the United States and 11 Pacific Rim countries, would barely affect American employment.

If Trump replaced the low tariffs provided by NAFTA and World Trade Organization rules with punitive tariffs on Mexican and Chinese goods, he probably would ignite a trade war that would raise prices for Americans and cause diplomatic havoc.

Economists recall that the 1930 Smoot-Hawley legislation, which raised tariffs on imports, inflamed trade tensions and worsened the Great Depression.

When foreigners can offer their goods and services, American consumers enjoy more items at better prices, and the competition makes U.S. companies more efficient.

A January report on the impact of Chinese imports, from David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Gordon Hanson of the University of California, San Diego, and David Dorn of the University of Zurich, casts some doubt on conventional assumptions.

Rather than pick fights with trading partners, as Trump would, analysts favor retraining workers who lose jobs to foreign competition or giving them financial assistance to move where companies are hiring.

"The politicians have just not done a good enough job in creating the support to help workers make the transition," says Joshua Meltzer, a senior fellow at Brookings Institution.