Thread: Democrats make a bad trade

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chicagotribune.com
Democrats make a bad trade
Candidates take great pains to distance themselves from NAFTA
Steve Chapman

December 2, 2007

Democrats yearn for the bounteous days of Bill Clinton's presidency—the economy was flourishing, there were good jobs at good wages and poverty was on the wane. So it's a puzzle that on one of his signature achievements—the North American Free Trade Agreement—the party's presidential candidates are sprinting away from his record as fast as they can. It's as though Republicans were calling for defense cuts while invoking Ronald Reagan.

Even Hillary Clinton can't bring herself to defend the deal her husband pushed through. Asked during a recent debate if she thought it was a mistake, she did everything but deny she'd ever met the man.

"All I can remember from that is a bunch of charts," she chortled, in possibly the least believable statement of the 2008 campaign. "That sort of is a vague memory." In the end, though, Clinton declared: "NAFTA was a mistake to the extent that it did not deliver on what we had hoped it would."

She has plenty of company. Barack Obama is on record as saying he "would not have supported the North American Free Trade Agreement as it was drafted." John Edwards has flogged the treaty like a rented mule, calling it "a complete and total disaster." And Dennis Kucinich thinks all copies of NAFTA should be humanely shredded and used as compost on shade-grown fair trade coffee, or something like that.

What did NAFTA ever do to deserve this abuse? Critics claim it destroyed a million jobs—forgetting that its implementation coincided with the longest peacetime expansion in American history. During that period, the unemployment rate fell to its lowest level since the Vietnam War. If that was a disaster, I'm Hannah Montana.

Ordinary workers, contrary to myth, benefited from NAFTA. In the decade before it took effect, average hourly earnings (adjusted for inflation) fell by 5 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the decade after, they rose by 9 percent.

Even supposing the deal did eliminate a million jobs, that actually doesn't amount to much. Every year, millions of jobs vanish and millions materialize as old companies cut back or close and new ones sprout. What counts is net growth. Since 1994, when NAFTA took effect, the total number of jobs in this country has risen by 26 million.

Candidates blame NAFTA for pushing American companies to close plants here and move production south. But from 1994 to 2001, U.S. manufacturers invested $200 billion a year at home—and only $2.2 billion a year in Mexico, the Cato Institute reports. After NAFTA passed, U.S. manufacturing output soared, and it's now at the highest level ever. American farmers have seen their exports boom.

From listening to the Democrats, you'd never guess that our exporters got more out of the deal than Mexico's did. NAFTA actually made it easier for U.S. companies to stay here and sell products in Mexico. How? By phasing out tariffs on goods shipped there—which, on average, were 2½ times higher than ours. We gave nickels to get dimes.

Edwards and Co. hold fast to the superstition that tariffs and other trade barriers are essential to our prosperity. The reality is that admitting imports makes Americans more prosperous by reducing prices of consumer and capital goods. It also strengthens American companies by forcing them to be more efficient and innovative.

So why do so many people, including approximately 100 percent of those who turn up at Democratic debates, hold this and other trade agreements in such contempt? One obvious reason is they want to appeal to labor unions, which generally prefer protectionism.

But Gary Hufbauer, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, suspects one reason lies in a different issue: illegal immigration. Some NAFTA supporters thought it might generate enough growth in Mexico to keep Mexican workers at home. When the tide of illegal immigrants grew, it bred resentment here.

That reaction partly helps to explain the Democratic retreat. By denouncing NAFTA, the presidential candidates can appeal to Americans alarmed about our porous borders without offending Hispanic voters.

But they should remember two crucial things: Bill Clinton presided over an era of enviable prosperity, and he did more to expand free trade than any president since Franklin Roosevelt. If they want to get back to the land of Oz, Democrats would be advised to follow the same yellow brick road.

Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
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President Clinton passed this, but let's be honest, Pres. Reagan began talking it up during his terms.

I remember his saying it would put an end to the illegal immigration problem because they would all have jobs.

I am not a fan of too many politicians, but just as a feeling, I liked a lot about Presl. Reagan, so it's not bashing.

But if we are going to fix things in this country, we are going to have to quit blaming the rep/dem as if there is a difference.

It was proposed long before Clinton - and I don't know, but I'd be willing to bet a lot of Republicans voted for it.

This and all the other truly destructive things that have been done have been a truly 'bi-partisan' effort.

That's we signed a NAFTA deal with Peru is fightening.

Timeline of the Progress Toward a North American Union
Canadian, U.S., and Mexican elites, including CEOS and politicians, have a plan to create common North American policies and further integrate our economies. This plan goes by various names and euphemisms, such as "deep integration", "NAFTA-plus", "harmonization", the "Big Idea", the "Grand Bargain", and the "North American Security and Prosperity Initiative". Regardless of which name your prefer, the end goal of all of these plans is to create a new political and economic entity that would supercede the existing countries. Advocates refer to it as a "North American Community", but it is also known as the North American Union (NAU). Theoretically, it would be similar to and competetive with the European Union (EU). The individual currencies of each country would be replaced by a common currency called the "Amero" and everything from environmental regulations to security would be brought in line with a common standard.

Vive le Canada.ca offers the following timeline as a resource to educate the general public about the progress of the three countries toward a new North American Union (NAU).

Vive le Canada.ca opposes the creation of the North American Union (NAU) because we believe it will mean the loss of Canadian sovereignty and democracy and hand over more power to giant, unelected corporations. We also believe that unlike the EU, the countries joining the NAU are not roughly equal in size and power and that this means the U.S. will most certainly be setting policy for all three countries. Considering the unpopularity of the Bush administration and its policies in the U.S., Canada, and around the world we believe that erasing the borders between our countries and adopting U.S. policies at this time is a bad idea and will create economic, political and military insecurity in this country. We hope that raising awareness about the plan to create a North American Union (NAU) will create opposition and encourage debate in all three countries, but especially in Canada.

Note: This timeline is a work in progress and will be updated as events progress. If you notice a correction that needs to be made or an event that should be included, please email susan.thompson@vivelecanada.ca. Please allow time for updates to be made as they will be made less frequently than updates to the main page of the site.


Timeline
1921: The Council on Foreign Relations is founded by Edward Mandell House, who had been the chief advisor of President Woodrow Wilson.
1973: David Rockefeller asks Zbigniew Brzezinski and a few others, including from the Brookings Institution, Council on Foreign Relations and the Ford Foundation, to put together an organization of the top political, and business leaders from around the world. He calls this group the Trilateral Commission (TC). The first meeting of the group is held in Tokyo in October. See: Trilateral Commission FAQ
1974: Richard Gardner, one of the members of the Trilateral Commission, publishes an article titled "The Hard Road to World Order" which appeared in Foreign Affairs magazine, published by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). In the article he wrote: "In short, the 'house of world order' would have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down. It will look like a great 'booming, buzzing confusion,' to use William James' famous description of reality, but an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault." Gardner advocated treaties and trade agreements as a means of creating a new economic world order. See: The Hard Road to World Order
November 13, 1979: While officially declaring his candidacy for U.S. President, Ronald Reagan proposes a “North American Agreementâ€