Do you support NAFTA?

[Zhade]

I don't, but I'm interested in hearing pro-NAFTA arguments.

[mattclearing]

1. I support it, but think it needs to be improved.

I would like to incorporate fair labor standards into it.

[Zhade]

2. How would one do that?

NT!

[no name no slogan]

3. I did at first

Well, it wasn't so much "support" it, as just accept its inevitability.

Of course, this was in 1993, after twelve years of Reagan/Bush benign neglect, when Clinton looked to be the Great White Hope of the Democratic Party, and he could do no wrong.

However, I've learned my lesson and now oppose it and its associated agreements, and the WTO, who's very structure is un-capitalistic and un-democratic.

[Seldona]

4. As it stands, no.

We really get ripped as it stands mow.

I would like to see some equality built in, though I seriously doubt it will ever happen.

I can just hear countries everywhere screaming 'Protectionism!'.

Whatever, the fix is above my head.

[Brundle_Fly]

5. You get really ripped???

the US is the major faulting member of the free trade agreement, they change the rules as they see fit!

ask any Canadian

edit: how can adding tarrifs to FREE trade be considered fair?

[Zhade]

11. Not only isn't it FAIR, it's not even FREE at that point.

Loving the responses, thanks to all for getting involved!

[Chicago Democrat]

6. It needs to be re-negotiated based on changing realities.

There is no way what is happening in China is at all comparable to what is going on in Europe or The USA.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. I voted "Other"

In principle, I agree with the notion of free trade agreements.

The problem with NAFTA wasn't the concept, it was the implementation and the way it keeps getting fucked with.

Also, it didn't go far enough. It could have been modeled more along the lines of the EU. Require similar fair labor standards. Require similar environmental standards. Etc.

Even after NAFTA, that great sucking sound wasn't from a move of jobs to a NAFTA partner. It was a move to WalMart's parent company, China.

[bullimiami]

8. It was designed and implemented

To the sole benefit of large corporations and governments.

Never a care for the people, just a scheme to further taking advantage of them.

[high density]

9. I recently found a tape I made of the Gore/Perot NAFTA debate from 1993

Gore sounded like a Republican in it. (He also had his sighing problem.) I have no clue why I taped this, but it was very interesting to hear it a decade later.

I don't think NAFTA has done what it was supposed to do. We have increased trade deficits with Canada and Mexico, plus US wages are stagnant.

[Zhade]

12. Maybe those who designed it DID get what they wanted, after all?

NT!

[Runcible Spoon]

10. No. One of the major stains on Clinton's otherwise

solid and impressive legacy.

[Radical Activist]

14. hehe Clinton...stain...

hehe
sorry, couldn't help it.

[Runcible Spoon]

19. Snarf! you and the Clenis!

:crazy:

[Radical Activist]

13. NAFTA was a lie and it represents

rule by corporate government. The WTO, World Bank and other trade agreements are the way that the corporate agenda imposes itself on the world. I think these are the biggest threats to progressive ideals and everything the Democratic Party should stand for.

[Radical Activist]

15. CAFTA and FTAA are next

The corporate media won't pay much attention but I hope people are ready to oppose those measures. The FTAA protests in Miami were probably the closest thing to a total oppressive police state the US has ever seen. I think that shows how important these agreements are to the corporate powers.

[proudbluestater]

16. Clinton stabbed his union supporters in the back

That was the biggest mistake he made in my opinion. Now the jobs end up in China where they pay .42 an hour; people lose their jobs here and people in China cannot afford to buy the product. Eventually it will all come tumbling down like a house of cards.

Automakers are only selling the big-end cars right now, Caddys and Hummers due to the number of new millionaires created thanks to * tax policies. The economy will not survive when the middle class has been obliterated and the poor are taking the bus.

[Jack_DeLeon]

17. I support NAFTA, what I dont support is trading with China...

Whats the point of having free trade in the Americas if we are going to be buying all our shit from China anyways.

I would rather we bought more goods from our neighbors in the hemisphere and cut China out of the picture.

[autorank]

18. NAFTA enables a great nation, Mexico, to stay corrupt.

I like the idea and I LOVE Mexico. What great people and potential. We ought to say, full NAFTA when Mexico gets a clean government (this is after we get one) and moves toward wage equality and environmental parity. The potential here is huge. With Mexico growing and Canada, we would have a great trading block and a kick-ass continent.

[rhite5]

20. Under NAFTA and the WTO, governments give up their sovereignty ...

That applies to strong nations as well as weak nations. Their legislatures and even their presidents cannot decide or modify trade policies. All such decisions are made by the corporations.

We have seen the results in most of the countries of the southern hemisphere where corporations are raping countries of their natural resources. (Timber, Oil, Minerals). Indigenous people have been dislocated. Farmers' productive farmlands have been taken over by multi-national corporations and the farm families have been forced to move to cities where they find work at miserable wages if they are lucky (working for some other multi-national corporation making cheap goods to sell in North America and Europe).

Some countries have even been forced to give up their natural resources to pay exhorbitant interest on their debts to the WTO. Some corporations have even taken over the water systems within some countries and then sell the water to consumers there.

But the key thing about it is the lack of sovereignty for all the nations involved. Even if the U.S. had an honest, responsible Congress or an honest, responsible President, nothing could be done about it. The corporate multi-nationals are beyond their reach.

So-called "Free Trade" is the biggest crime ever pulled on the population of the world. And the sad thing is, both Republicans and Democrats in our country went for it.

Most of the U.S. public does not have a clue, I am sorry to say.

Understanding this, makes you realize how significant the recent success of Chavez in Venezuela was.

[sadiesworld]

22. Treason, IMO.

So much rests on Chavez.

[MAlibdem]

24. International solutions to problems

is a left-wing position, not a right-wing one.

Marx called for international revolution. While I don't quite agree and I believe in free markets, we need international controls on the global economy or else you get Smoot-Hawley protectionism.

[wyldwolf]

21. like many Dems, including Howard Dean, I think it looked like a good idea

...but looking back on it, it hasn't performed as many thought it would.

[Guaranteed]

26. I think his ideas about how it needs to be changed are exactly right...

We have to increase the living and environmental standards in other countries to balance things out.

[Zhade]

27. But I do believe it performed exactly as designed by corporate interests.

NT!

[MAlibdem]

23. NAFTA is overall good...

we get cheap products, Mexico gets jobs, we get less illegal immigration, Mexican interest groups (on labor and environment especially) get a boost from working intimately with American and Canadian interest groups and learning from them and pointing to American and Canadian laws as an example.

Read "Taking Trade to the Streets" by Susan Ariel Aaronson (i think it was her), very interesting history of American trade policy that ultimately suggests that free trade with international treaties and institutions that protect the environment and labor standards on an international level are better than a few rich countries with good standards and everyone else with no standards.

[CrownPrinceBandar]

25. And GAT sucks too.............................n/t

[erpowers]

28. No

I do not support NAFTA in that it seems that it is the reason for the massive lose of jobs in the US.

[ulysses]

29. no.

Fair trade in economic globalization, yes. NAFTA, no.