U.S. lost nearly 700,000 jobs to NAFTA, report finds

May 05, 2011 5:07 PM



Mary Ann Milbourn

The Orange County Register


Business with Mexico since adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement has cost the United States 682,900 jobs over 16 years, according to a report released Tuesday by the Economic Policy Institute.

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 United States dropped its tariffs. The surge in Mexican exports to the United States — and the jobs that were created there — far outstripped the American work that came from increased trade. By Scott’s count, the United States 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 United States, limited the impact on the trade deficit and jobs, Scott said.

http://www.themonitor.com/articles/jobs ... -lost.html