NAFTA At 20: 1 Million Lost Jobs, 580% Increase In Trade Deficit

[unhappycamper]

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-johnson/53418/nafta-at-20-1-million-lost-jobs-580-increase-in-trade-deficit

NAFTA At 20: 1 Million Lost Jobs, 580% Increase In Trade Deficit
by Dave Johnson | December 31, 2013 - 10:30am

~snip~

NAFTA was not just a “trade” agreement. Trade agreements focus on cutting tariffs and easing quotas and barriers to goods moving across borders. The report points out that NAFTA was much more, giving corporations special rights, incentivizing offshoring and limiting regulation. As the report puts it,

“NAFTA created new privileges and protections for foreign investors that incentivized the offshoring of investment and jobs by eliminating many of the risks normally associated with moving production to low-wage countries. NAFTA allowed foreign investors to directly challenge before foreign tribunals domestic policies and actions, demanding government compensation for policies that they claimed undermined their expected future profits. NAFTA also contained chapters that required the three countries to limit regulation of services, such as trucking and banking; extend medicine patent monopolies; limit food and product safety standards and border inspection; and waive domestic procurement preferences, such as Buy American.”

Some of the effects of NAFTA that are highlighted in the report include,
* $181 billion U.S. trade deficit with NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada,
* one million net U.S. jobs lost because of NAFTA,
* a doubling of immigration from Mexico,
* larger agricultural trade deficits with Mexico and Canada,
* and more than $360 million paid to corporations after “investor-state” tribunal attacks on, and rollbacks of, domestic public interest policies.

The data also show how post-NAFTA trade and investment trends have contributed to:
* middle-class pay cuts, which in turn contributed to growing income inequality;
* how since NAFTA, U.S. trade deficit growth with Mexico and Canada has been 45 percent higher than with countries not party to a U.S. Free Trade Agreement,
* and how U.S. manufacturing and services exports to Canada and Mexico have grown at less than half the pre-NAFTA rate.

[Auggie]

1. That giant sucking sound will get louder under the Trans-Pacific Partnership

[newfie11]

2. True that +++. Nt

[MindMover]

3. Sure NAFTA is all of that but, but, but, we redistributed wealth to those poorer nations ...

[MannyGoldstein]

4. 2014!

Next you'll be complaining about the three free trade agreements that Obama teamed with Republicans on. You're falling right into Karl Rove's damp, fetid hands.

Stop distracting Democrats from 2014!

[upi402]

5. My 2 "Democratic" Senators supported it

And they are both women. I sure hope we don't see a 'support Hillary' movement here just because sh'es a woman.

Economic justice is the justice that counts in capitalism. We are neither democratic nor capitalist now. We are corporatist and we need to challenge the corporatists in our party in the primaries.

[KoKo]

6. Recommend..

[Doctor_J]

7. once tpp takes ahold, you'll think nafta was great

Too bad the president couldn't "fast track" healthcare or the$15.00 minimum wage.

[Supposn]

8. Trade deficit’s harm explained and a proposed remedy.

Unhappy Camper, for an explanation of the problem, refer to the discussion thread “Trade deficit’s detriment to their nation’s GDPs”,
http://www.democraticunderground.com/111645877 .

For a proposed remedy, refer to the discussion thread “Reduce the trade deficit; increase GDP & median wage”,
http://www.democraticunderground.com/111645878 .

Respectfully, Supposn

[snot]

9. K&R'd & bookmarked! And . . .

. . . the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, which the Obama admin has been trying to push through in secrecy, has rightly been described as "NAFTA on steroids."

Personally, I'm against protectionism per se. But I am also against allowing corps. that sell in the U.S. to operate elsewhere in ways that would violate the law if they were operating here; i.e., if their actions would violate labor or environmental laws here, then they should not be allowed to sell their products here.

I can accept a reduction in my own financial welfare if it helps others. But it's insane for us to accede to a legal regime that encourages a race to the bottom, with countries competing against one another to reduce labor, environmental or other protections in order to try to attract sh*ttier and sh*ttier jobs.