Thread: NAFTA not such a great deal after all

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/hera ... S10810.htm

NAFTA not such a great deal after all
A debate has been raging for more than a month now over plans for a NAFTA super-corridor. Fear, believe it or not, appears to have invaded the issue about getting goods to market faster.

It seems the North American Super Corridor Coalition, a non-profit trade group, is proposing a 4,000-mile transportation network. It would interconnect seaports, airports, railways and rubber tire trucks from the Pacific port of Lazaro Cardenas in southern Mexico all the way to a hub in Kansas City. From there, routes lead to Duluth, Minn., Montreal and Vancouver, British Columbia.

To put things in perspective, the North American Free Trade Agreement forms the second largest trade bloc in the world after the European Union. In concept, however, the two approaches are very different. NAFTA is quickly becoming an example of how not to conduct regional trade. The United States and Canada mainly benefited and Mexico lost out as its assembly plants operated for a while, then left for even lower-wage countries. Mexico is only now beginning to recover.

NAFTA is virtually cliche throughout the world on how to not approach national development. It displaced people from rural areas and small towns who go to urban areas. Agriculture became unproductive. The pact also succeeded in fomenting fear in the United States about potential job and sovereignty losses.

That partly explains why all the bluster has blinded many to the realities. One reality is that the European Union successfully formed the largest trade community in the world while improving the less developed countries, among them Ireland, Spain, Italy and Greece. Is it any wonder 10 more nations joined the original 15 EU in 2004?

One concern posed by the conservative weekly Human Events about the super corridor idea is that Texas interests are top-heavy in the group. Another seems to be that superships with 4,000 containers could port at Lazaro Cardenas and have those goods in Kansas City in no time, bypassing the U.S. West Coast.

The debate is a little like the focus on Thanksgiving. The main event is the reunion, not the turkey. Technocrats will divert attention to the rivalries when the goal is making regional improvements through economic integration.

In Mexico, the presumed presidential election winner Felipe Calderon told a group of international reporters he did not expect to renegotiate NAFTA.

"I don't see," he is reported to have said, "the winner of a renegotiation would be Mexico."

Now, a month later, pressures are building for him to do some pushing of his own, and not in the direction of his political base, the NAFTA-prosperous northern states. Instead, the agricultural southern states, which benefited the least from NAFTA, cannot compete with the U.S.-subsidized farming industry seeking to import corn and beans. When avocados and cactus lose their local markets too, the country ceases to be Mexico.

Unless all North Americans get smart and competitive, this month's announcement from Japan will seem like a threat instead of a global stabilizing change. Efforts will soon begin to form a 16-member Asian and Oceanian economic partnership that would include China, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, India and 10 other nations.

That further explains why the People's Daily in Beijing took such an interest in the truck driver shortage here. According to trucking executives, young U.S. workers would rather work for less money than sit behind an 18-wheeler. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, truck drivers averaged $35,460 last year, with top pay over $50,000. The American Trucking Association says the industry was short 20,000 drivers, a shortage that could reach 111,000 by 2014. John Vande Vate of Georgia Tech has suggested allowing Mexican truck drivers access to the U.S. market, although that's an unlikely solution, given current attitudes.

Meanwhile, China has good reason to be worried about the truck-driver shortage. It doesn't want those super-cargo carriers at Port Lazaro Cardenas to sail back deadhead, empty of North American products.

NAFTA not such a great deal after all

NAFTA was a horrible deal from the gitgo!

NAFTA was a horrible deal from the gitgo!

Agree 100%! The plan was doomed to failure from the beginning. Anyone that did a little research on NAFTA prior to the agreement being signed could see what was coming. The critics of the plan were right on target.

Meanwhile, China has good reason to be worried about the truck-driver shortage. It doesn't want those super-cargo carriers at Port Lazaro Cardenas to sail back deadhead, empty of North American products.

What North American products? We don't make anything anymore. What value added products can't they get in Asia for less? They must be wanting the few resources left here. Get ready to clearcut the National forests and create the Canada desert.

Originally Posted by loservillelabor

Meanwhile, China has good reason to be worried about the truck-driver shortage. It doesn't want those super-cargo carriers at Port Lazaro Cardenas to sail back deadhead, empty of North American products.

What North American products? We don't make anything anymore. What value added products can't they get in Asia for less? They must be wanting the few resources left here. Get ready to clearcut the National forests and create the Canada desert.

I think we still make socks and some underwear! And to think we used to mfg. everything we needed!