Thread: Mexico trade pact costs U.S. nearly 700,000 jobs

Mexico trade pact costs U.S. nearly 700,000 jobs

May 4th, 2011, 1:00 am
by Mary Ann Milbourn

Business with Mexico since adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement has cost the U.S. 682,900 jobs over 16 years, according to a report released Tuesday by the Economic Policy Institute. An estimated 10,700 were in Orange County.

The institute, which advocates on behalf of low- and moderate-income workers, says California had the most jobs lost to trade with Mexico. From 1994 to 2010, an estimated 86,500 jobs in California fell victim to the trade agreement.

Three out of five of the jobs cut nationwide — 415,000 — were in manufacturing.

Robert E. Scott, the report’s author, bases his numbers on the U.S. production work that moved to Mexico after the U.S. dropped its tariffs. The surge in Mexican exports to the U.S. — and the jobs that were created there — far outstripped the American work that came from increased trade. By Scott’s count, the U.S. ran up a $97.2 billion trade deficit with Mexico in the 16 years after NAFTA took effect.

NAFTA also removed trade barriers for Canada but the strong Canadian dollar, which made its exports more expensive in the U.S., limited the impact on the trade deficit and jobs, Scott said.

Other findings:

On average, 40,200 jobs have been lost or displaced per year since NAFTA took effect.

Computer and electronic parts (150,300 jobs, 22% of the 682,900 displaced jobs) and motor vehicles and parts (108,000 jobs; 15.8% of the total) were the manufacturing industries hardest hit by growing bilateral trade deficits.

More jobs were created in Mexico (30,400) by the growth of net exports of autos and auto parts to the United States in 2010 than were created in the entire U.S. auto industry in the same period, which added only 25,700 jobs between December 2009 and December 2010. (Click on chart to enlarge.)

The report does not say whether the jobs that were lost were replaced by other work but concludes that anyone who found employment was probably worse off.

“Even if increased demand in other sectors absorbs all the workers displaced by trade (an unlikely event), job quality is likely to suffer, as many non-trade-related industries, such as retail and home health care, pay lower wages and have less comprehensive benefits than trade-related industries,â€

My familys bisness went away because of NAFTA and it looks as if our politicians are going to sell more of us out be prepared for thing to get harder here!

NAFTA is a failure. "Free trade" is a failure because it is actually highly regulated trade designed to make the corps. reign in profit at expense of the People -- designed by the wealthy for the wealthy -- and to accomplish other rather nefarious goals --- the NAU -- NWO.

We tried it and the "free trade" agreements are a failure and in nearly every case it disadvantages the U.S. into losing wealth overseas to the other nations which is not fair trade. Trade was done since the U.S. Nation began and without such "free trade" agreements.

Congress is known to move on Free trade agreements just before (and I literally mean the day or two before) going on Memorial day break.

Americans should contact Congress -- tell them NO on S. Korea, Colombia and Panama free trade agreements -- NO!!

Study says NAFTA free-trade pacts cost jobs

Analysis finds net loss of 27,500 in Mid-South
By Bartholomew Sullivan

Posted May 15, 2011 at midnight

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk told members of the House Agriculture Committee last week that a proposed free-trade agreement with South Korea would deliver 70,000 American jobs.

But a report by the Economic Policy Institute earlier this month analyzed the terms of the agreement and concluded it would lead to displacing 159,000 American jobs in its first seven years.

The same report, "Heading South: U.S.-Mexico Trade and job displacement after NAFTA," makes the case that the free-trade agreement with Mexico and Canada that went into effect in 1994 has cost 682,900 American jobs, three-fifths of them in the manufacturing sector.

In the three states of the Mid-South, while some jobs were created from increased exports, far more were lost when manufacturing production lines left the region as tariff barriers fell. Tennessee, which picked up 18,600 export-related jobs from 1994 to 2010, lost 35,100, for a net job loss of 16,400.

In Arkansas and Mississippi, the net job losses were 5,800 and 5,300, respectively.

The five congressional districts of the Greater Memphis area lost 7,500 jobs in that period, the report indicates.

Tennessee's 9th District, which includes Memphis, lost 1,000 jobs. Tennessee's 8th, which includes Millington, Covington, and Jackson, lost 1,400. Tennessee's 7th, which includes parts of Germantown, Collierville and Bartlett, lost 1,900.

Mississippi's 1st, which includes DeSoto and Marshall counties, lost 1,700, and Arkansas' 1st, which includes Crittenden County, Blytheville and Jonesboro, lost 1,500, it found.

As the report says, "Trade both creates and destroys jobs. While exports tend to support domestic employment, imports lead to job displacement: As imports are substituted for domestically produced goods, production that supports domestic jobs falls, displacing existing jobs and preventing new job creation..."

"Like NAFTA, the (Korean Free Trade Agreement) will likely result in growing trade deficits and hence U.S. job displacement, not economy-wide growth," it says.

The EPI, since 1986 a leading nonprofit think tank that analyzes the impact of economic policy on the middle- and lower classes, predicts in the 32-page report that domestic jobs in the motor vehicle and auto parts and computer and electronic parts industries, in particular, would be hardest hit if the Korean agreement goes through. Those are the same industries negatively affected by bilateral free trade agreements, it said.

Opponents of NAFTA as it worked its way through Congress in the early 1990s predicted job losses and a race to the bottom as good-paying jobs went to export assembly plants, known as maquiladoras, across the border in Mexico.

International Brotherhood of Teamsters president James P. Hoffa said in response to an inquiry by The Commercial Appeal last week that "EPI's findings come as no surprise to our membership.

"We have said from the beginning that NAFTA was a job killer. We shouldn't be sending American jobs with good American benefits to countries with cheap labor and no benefits. That is not fair trade," Hoffa said.

The U.S. has pending agreements with Korea, Panama and Colombia. Kirk's testimony last Thursday focused on the expansion of export markets for agricultural commodities that would be made available if they take effect.

"With respect to the U.S.-Korea trade agreement, we are committed to ensuring that the significant economic promise of that agreement is fully realized -- more than $10 billion in increased annual exports of U.S. goods alone, and more than 70,000 American jobs," Kirk said.

"The U.S.-South Korea trade agreement will provide America's farmers, ranchers, food processors workers and businesses they support with improved access to South Korea's $1 trillion economy and 49 million consumers," Kirk said. "Selling more 'Grown in America' products in South Korea will support more U.S. jobs on our own farms and ranches, and in our processing plants and shipping centers."

The agreement would eliminate tariffs on two-thirds of American agricultural exports to Korea, including duties on fruits, nuts, vegetables and soybeans. South Korea is already the U.S.'s fifth-largest agricultural export market and is expected to buy $6.2 billion this fiscal year.

The PEI report indicates that, as originally written, the Korean agreement would have permitted auto parts and components to enter the U.S. duty free if only 35 percent of the content of those parts originated in Korea. The report speculates that, if that language remains, it would create a "vast conduit for duty-free imports of parts with high levels of content from China," leading to a further displacement of American auto parts jobs.

The Panama agreement is expected to provide U.S. exporters with $46 million in sales of rice, corn, meats, dairy and processed foods, Kirk said. The Colombia agreement would raise U.S. agricultural exports by $1.1 billion. In his testimony before the Agriculture Committee, he did not address the agreements' likely effect on domestic manufacturing employment.

The U.S. Trade Representative's website indicates the U.S. has been running a trade deficit with Mexico and Canada amounting to $41 billion in 2009 and $95 billion last year.

The EPI report says that the North American Free Trade Agreement made it attractive to companies all over the world to invest in Mexico to get duty-free access to the U.S. market. Foreign direct investment in Mexico tripled after the agreement was signed.

Tennessee tied with New Hampshire, Kentucky and Ohio for third place in the percentage of jobs lost because of the free-trade agreement, the report indicates. Only Michigan and Indiana, which saw the automobile industry decimated, fared worse as a percentage of their overall labor forces.

Another effect of NAFTA has been that wages have not kept pace with labor productivity, resulting in rising income inequality, and putting more pressure on the American manufacturing base, according to Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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