Economic nationalism and pandering to farmers are two classic parts of presidential campaigning. In this post by Senator Elizabeth Warren, she does both at the same time:

Advancing the Interests of American Farmers

Washington has also bowed to powerful foreign interests instead of standing up for American farmers. Congress repealed mandatory country-of-origin labeling for beef and pork in 2015 after a series of World Trade Organization challenges from Canada and Mexico, and it hasn’t established a new rule to protect American farmers. The result is that beef and pork can be given a US origin label if it is processed in the United States — even if the animals are not born and raised here. This misleads consumers looking for American-grown meat and undermines American beef and pork producers.

That’s why I will push hard for new country-of-origin rules for beef and pork — and use the trade tools available to me as President to push Canada and Mexico to accept them. These new rules will not only be good for consumers because they promote transparency, but good for independent American farmers, who are otherwise undercut by global agribusinesses passing off foreign beef and pork as American.

We also must stop foreign governments and companies from buying up American farmland. Foreign companies and countries like China and Saudi Arabia already own 25 million acres of American farmland. That’s about the size of Virginia. And one in four American hogs has a Chinese owner. That jeopardizes our food security, which threatens our national security too.

Iowa has the right idea. It passed a law prohibiting foreign individuals or entities from purchasing farmland for the purpose of farming. I support a national version of that law, and as President, will use all available tools to restrict foreign ownership of American agriculture companies and farmland. And I’m committed to stronger beneficial ownership laws so that foreign purchasers can’t set up fake American buyers to get around these restrictions.

Her argument about country of origin labelling and the World Trade Organization channels Donald Trump (“Washington has … bowed to powerful foreign interests”), but misunderstands the nature of the legislation/regulation at issue. Country of origin labelling requirements are not per se prohibited under WTO rules, but the rules do say that you can’t use them as a disguised means of protectionism, as was the case with the U.S. legislation/regulation at issue. My colleague Inu Manak wrote about the COOL legislation/regulation here, and she and I did a case study of the issue for this book. We explained that the trade problem was not the labelling requirement itself, but rather the structure of the particular legislation/regulation at issue, which created an incentive for meat processors to use domestic rather than foreign beef and pork. We also found a good deal of evidence in the legislative history indicating that protectionism, rather than consumer information, was the real purpose.

As for Warren’s reference to “countries like China and Saudi Arabia” buying up 25 millions acres of American farmland, that is a very creative use of the actual data. If you follow her links, you get to this explanation by the USDA:

Canadian investors own the largest amount of reported foreign held agricultural and non-agricultural land, with 28 percent, or 7,250,834 acres (report 1B). Foreign persons from an additional four countries, the Netherlands with 19 percent, Germany with 7 percent, the United Kingdom with 6 percent, and Portugal with 5 percent collectively hold 9,511,437 acres or 36 percent of the foreign held acres in the United States. The remaining 9,577,982 acres, or 36 percent of all reported foreign held agricultural and non-agricultural land, is held by various other countries.

But wait, where is Saudi Arabia in all of this? Her inclusion of a reference to that country seems designed to get people thinking about terrorism or human rights abuses, but here’s what is actually going on and it’s not all that scary: “Saudi Arabia and the UAE alone have acquired more than 15,000 acres in Arizona and Southern California to grow fodder for dairy cattle.” 

Warren’s attempt to appeal to economic nationalism is not surprising. But given recent polling showing that Democrats are more supportive of free trade these days, it might be smart if other Democrats took a different approach.

Spencer Raley at the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) recently wrote a criticism of a recent Cato brief that estimates illegal immigrant incarceration rates in the United States.  Much of Raley’s critique is perplexing as following his methodology advice would not only lead to an erroneous result but it would reduce illegal immigrant incarceration rates – which is the opposite result that he and his organization desire.  Raley’s points are quoted below, my responses follow.

The authors rely on faulty, voluntary data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS).  Even mainstream organizations like Pew Research acknowledge that many illegal aliens are slow to volunteer information about themselves to the federal government.  That’s why reputable research organizations assume a certain undercount when relying on ACS data.  Hesitation to self-report personal information is only increased when surveys include questions about criminal history. So, from the start, the primary source used in this study will yield an undercount of incarcerated illegal aliens because it relies on self-reported data.

The responses of prisoners are recorded by Census officials who interview a sample under the supervision of prison officials who also supply information like immigration status and country of birth.  Although it’s easy for people outside of prison to avoid a Census official, it’s quite difficult for a prisoner to do so if he or she has been selected for an interview by the ACS.  Since the ACS doesn’t ask about the respondent’s criminal histories, Raley’s criticism here is perplexing.  If anything, using the ACS would yield an undercount of the illegal immigrant population – which would increase the illegal immigrant incarceration rate in our brief. 

They also misstate illegal alien crime data from Texas. The authors sliced and diced data from Texas’ Department of Public Safety, claiming that the original data offered by the state was far too high, and that illegal aliens in Texas are half as likely to be incarcerated as U.S. citizens. The real numbers, however, tell a different story. Based on data compiled between June 2011 and February 2019, 25,000 illegal aliens are booked into Texas state and local jails annually, on average.

Raley makes several errors in summarizing my Texas crime research.  First, I didn’t “slice and dice” any data from Texas.  I took the numbers released by the Texas Department of Public Safety, divided them by the relevant subpopulation of Texas in 2015, and then multiplied the result by 100,000 to get a criminal conviction rate.  Second, I didn’t compare illegal immigrants to U.S. citizens.  I compared illegal immigrants to native-born Americans and legal immigrants separately.  Third, my Texas study did not analyze incarceration rates.  My Texas study looked at criminal conviction rates.  Incarceration rates and criminal conviction rates are different. 

Raley’s other criticisms are answered by reading the methodology section of our brief.  This is the most relevant section here which explains why we looked at the 18-54 population:

Another limitation of the ACS data is that not all inmates in group quarters are in correctional facilities. Although most inmates in the public-use microdata version of the ACS are in correctional facilities, the data also include those in mental health and elderly care institutions, as well as those in institutions for people with disabilities. These inclusions add ambiguity to our findings about the illegal immigrant population but not about the immigrant population as a whole, because the ACS releases macrodemographic snapshots of inmates in correctional facilities, which allows us to check our work.

The ambiguity in illegal immigrant incarceration rates mentioned above prompted us to narrow the age range to those who are ages 18-54. This age range excludes most inmates in mental health and retirement facilities. Few prisoners are under age 18, many in mental health facilities are juveniles, and many of those over age 54 are in elderly care institutions. Additionally, few illegal immigrants are elderly, whereas those in elderly care institutions are typically over age 54. As a result, narrowing the age range does not exclude many individuals from our analysis. We are more confident that our methods do not cut out many prisoners because winnowing the 18-54 age range reduces their numbers to about 4.5 percent above that of the ACS snapshot. Natives in our results include both those born in the United States and those born abroad to American parents.