This study estimates that all states could gain jobs and increase their exports to the EU under a comprehensive and ambitious TTIP. In the state of Virginia alone, successful implementation of a comprehensive TTIP could boost exports to the EU by more than a quarter and increase net employment by almost 21,000 jobs. The whole of the US could see a net employment gain of almost 750,000 jobs. That is equivalent to the entire working population of New Hampshire.

Business Services +15,752 jobs
Financial Services +1,543 jobs
Non-Electric Machinery Mfg. +1,395 jobs
Metals and Metal Products Mfg. +1,187 jobs

Since 2006, California’s pharmaceutical exports to the EU have increased by 61 percent. By reducing barriers to trade and investment, TTIP would facilitate future growth, increasing anticipated US chemical exports by a further 34.2 percent

1. The “new” study is not really new. It is largely a recycled version of another recycled version of a study that appeared in 2009.

2. The study confirms again that TAFTA is not about trade. Since tariffs (an actual trade issue) are “already quite low” between the EU and U.S., pro-TAFTA government officials have readily stated that TAFTA’s primary goal is not tariff reduction, but the “elimination, reduction, or prevention of unnecessary ‘behind the border’ ” policies, ranging from Wall Street reforms to milk safety standards to GMO food labels.

3. The study assumes zero downside of eliminating consumer and environmental safeguards.Today’s study assumes that TAFTA would eliminate one out of every four “non-tariff barriers” — from the Volcker Rule at the center of Wall Street reform to safety standards for children’s toys to the ban on beef linked to mad-cow disease — at no cost to consumers. In addition to an obvious social and environmental toll, such a degradation of safeguards would also result in quantifiable monetary costs for U.S. consumers and the broader economy.

4. The study uses contested models with assumptions that can turn economic losses into gains. While ignoring costs, today’s study strives to capture all theoretically plausible benefits by relying on assumptions-laden methods, such as using a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model to assess removal of “non-tariff barriers” (NTBs). A U.N. study has questioned the reliability of this inchoate approach.

5. The study assumes a massive rollback of Buy American and Buy Local policies. Another assumption of today’s study is that TAFTA would eliminate one half of all “procurement barriers,” a euphemism for popular policies like Buy American and Buy Local to ensure that U.S. government projects, funded by U.S. taxpayers, are used to create U.S. jobs. It is rather fanciful to think that the U.S. Congress, state legislatures, or the U.S. public would accept such a clear-cutting of policies that enjoy 90% support. Indeed, today’s study assumes an even greater undercutting of Buy American and Buy Local than the EU negotiators themselves are hoping for. In a leaked EU position paper on government procurement, the EU explicitly names 13 U.S. states and 23 U.S. cities it is targeting for rollback of Buy Local policies. Today’s study assumes that the U.S. will offer to eliminate Buy Local in about twice as many states as the EU itself requested.

Even under the most starry-eyed scenario that the study’s authors can envision for the economic impact of tariff reduction, TAFTA would result in a mere 0.5 percent increase in U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) when fully implemented. But that “impact” is unrealistically high, given that it assumes a contentious proposition of tariff reductions causing strong “dynamic” economic growth, a theory that academics have repeatedly assailed with empirical evidence showing no such trade-growth causation. After dropping this dubious assumption, the study notes that the theoretical TAFTA-prompted increase in U.S. GDP of $182 billion shrivels to just $20.5 billion, a statistically invisible 0.06 percent blip. By comparison, economists estimate that the introduction of the fifth version of Apple’s iPhone delivered a GDP increase up to eight times higher than the projected TAFTA effect.

TAFTA’s trivial trade impact shrinks even further when examining the study’s projection of what the deal would mean in terms of actual income. The pro-TAFTA study projects that total annual U.S. national income would be just $4.6 billion higher under the deal. Even this number is likely too high, given that it assumes that 100 percent of existing tariffs between the EU and the U.S. would be fully eliminated under the deal, an unlikely scenario given that the EU has already stated that sensitive products should be afforded exemptions from tariff reductions. But proceeding with this inflated figure still results in deflated “benefits.” TAFTA, if ever concluded, would take years to negotiate, get past Congress and implement. After adjusting for inflation and population growth in the interim, the projected $4.6 billion boost would amount to an extra three cents per person per day.