What do DUers think about NAFTA?

[oberliner]

In general, do folks feel that NAFTA has done more good than bad over the years?

[dawg]

1. I think it helped the economy as a whole. Individual mileage, however, will vary.

Free trade agreements need to be paired with redistributive tax and spending policies in order to make them fair. Otherwise, they end up hurting the working class for the benefit of the rich.

[Wounded Bear]

2. This...

Overall, it has been good, but many individuals were hurt by it. And with Repubs in charge any benefits are likely to go up the class ladder, not down.

[dawg]

4. Free trade agreements, if done right, are one of the few free lunches available to a country.

The rich benefit tremendously, so you raise their tax rates a little (not enough to take all of their gains), and spend the money on everyone else - especially those whose jobs were affected.

Everyone can win.

But it rarely plays out that way in real life.

[Willie Pep]

3. Mostly bad.

It lowered wages and helped to encourage outsourcing to Mexico. Dean Baker has written about the issue extensively. Here is one article from him on the issue:

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/11/24/what-weve-learned-from-nafta/nafta-lowered-wages-as-it-was-supposed-to-do

Trade is good but not when it is based on "race to the bottom" policies that encourage companies to move to countries with poor environmental standards, few or no labor rights and weak social welfare systems. Trade works best when it is between countries with similar systems of regulations and labor rights, such as between the United States and Canada or between the Western European countries.

NAFTA did lower prices for consumer goods and this is why many people support it, particularly if you work in an industry that was not adversely impacted by NAFTA. I think this is why many liberals in professional jobs tend to be more supportive of NAFTA. They largely benefited from cheap goods while their jobs were not subject to the kind of pressures production workers were subject to hence why Baker brings up U.S. doctors when discussing how our country practices a kind of selective protectionism that benefits affluent Americans.

http://cepr.net/publications/op-eds-columns/inequality-as-policy-selective-trade-protectionism-favors-higher-earners

[Jarqui]

5. Off the cuff, I think it might be the worst thing the United States

did to itself in my lifetime and the damage is such that the country will never fully recover from the harm that it did in my lifetime.

The way I often see that it is graded in terms of dollars is usually BS or ignoring gaping holes for wealth to gush out of the country.

I think the avoidance of healthcare for all is heinous but what was done in free trade was worse because of the massive loss of wealth that could have helped pay for healthcare for all.

Countries tend to get wealthy by digging things out of the ground or adding value in some way and selling more of that than they buy. When you dispose of major chunk of what the country sold around the world in terms of value add, it hurts substantially and in ways that are not completely or easily described in a simple spreadsheet (which makes it more difficult for many to see or appreciate).

It was a national security issue. To express it too simply: in the late 80s and before, America had a very disproportionate share of the world's wealth. Either they agreed to spread some of it around or the rest of the world would eventually rise up to take it back.

There were a number of ways to go about it. Reagan and GHW Bush studied it. After the study and debate in the WH think tanks, Bush got cold feet about the NAFTA approach. It was not just the giant sucking sound of jobs leaving that Ross Perot warned about - it was a giant sucking sound of wealth, know how, innovation, designs, etc - going with those jobs that was of great concern.

Clinton came in, did not look at it closely and swash-buckled the deal that set the standard for others that followed. Clinton's deal largely ignored the inequities of environmental laws, labor laws, intellectual property rights, etc so that American companies could not compete. Clinton's deal also ignored a more humane transition for American workers and companies where the valve governing the pace of the transition could have been opened more slowly with planning for retraining and education re-direction, starting up industries to take up the slack, etc.

And to me, it is a darn big reason why the rust belt supported Trump and were so key to Trump getting elected - because Bill Clinton shuttered their factories so brutally with NAFTA - destroying the livelihood of so many so rapidly in those states and they took that out on Hillary. As much as I find Trump so vile, I cannot entirely blame them - Clinton-NAFTA ruined so many lives in those states.

A lot of innovation in products comes from the shop floor - not from the genius engineers - from the people actually trying to produce quality products in the most economical way in the factory. When those factories relocate to China or Mexico, that's far more likely to be the country who will develop and innovate the next series of improved products. And it's done in an environment where they can steal whatever intellectual ideas or software they want because the laws do not exist to compensate those they steal from. etc.

I think history will not be kind to Clinton in the long run. He looked like a genius in the short term but we're going to pay for it for generations to come. It helped the rich get richer and everyone else, including the country got fucked.

[HeartachesNhangovers]

6. I have no opinion either way. I never

owned or worked in a business that had any interaction with Canada or Mexico. Nobody I know ever said that NAFTA was helping or hurting them. If NAFTA had any effect on consumer prices for me, I'm unaware of it.

[cloudbase]

7. Ross was right about that one. n/t

[Hoyt]

8. The Mexican dirt farmer who is making $8/hour at an Audi or other plant is satisfied. And,

I think it is better for us too. Fact is, if we think we can trade among ourselves in a global world, we are insane.

I'm always happy when America shares the wealth with other countries because we've taken more than our share of the world's resources and wealth.

[mythology]

9. A good thing

The main reason the U.S. has lost manufacturing jobs is automation. We are actually producing more than ever, but the work is being done by machines.

[haele]

10. More good than bad.

Not as good for Mexican and Canadian farmers as U.S. farmers, not as good for U.S. factory workers as Mexican and Canadian factory workers (Canada picked up a lot of niche and small component manufacturing due to their health care system under NAFTA), not as good for Canadian resource extractors as it was for U.S. resource extractors.
Good for businesses across both borders, though.
It balanced out a lot of existing trade imbalances and competition, and spread out benefits to labor in general.

Haele

[Igel]

11. Good thread.

Upthread comments are interesting not for their content but their disagreement.

Those who said NAFTA was a good thing were few and far between until very recently. Mostly it was a horrible, anti-worker, anti-union pro-corporation agreement on behalf of the elites that helped destroyed the Mexican worker and collapse the Mexican corn marking, leading to massive immigration to the US while outsourcing American jobs.

I think that fairly summarizes what was said--or at least what I remember--from about 2004 to 2015. I might be screening out the occasional positive comment. Cognitive biases, what can I say?

Me?

It's too complex to get an opinion on just from the MSM. The MSM talks about a lot of reasonably conplex individual examples, often inaccurately and incompletely--X moves workers because it's cheaper in Mexico, but often the advantages weren't just NAFTA sensu stricto, but, e.g., tax advantages or allowed easy export to or from other markets that had free-trade agreements with Mexico. For example--not the general case, as far as I know--to make car engines in Mexico using parts mostly from China and Indonesia is one thing--"made in Mexico," it's NAFTA-covered; import the same parts from China and Indonesia, and Mexico for assembly in the US, preserving an American job, and it's a different set of tariffs, taxes, and politics. Better to ditch the US job and do the work in Mexico.

That said, I'm not going to read the agreement and case law that goes with it.

So I have no reasoned opinion. I just think that most opinions I've read are based on partial knowledge and about as worthwhile as mine. Sounds like an insult, but underlyingly the insult would have to be primarily self-directed.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

12. I know that neither Finland nor Russia wanted to be a part of it. Nt