Do you know why?
our net agricultural imports from other nations have increased from 32 billion in 1996 to 46 billion in 2003.
More variety and lower prices for consumers is bad because....?
That would mean a 14 billion dollar loss of trade to offset our 9.5 billion increase you cited; and that was since 2003.
Whatever are you talking about? Did exports of American agricultural products increase between 1994-2005 or decrease? I'll make it easy for you "Between 1994 and 2005, global U.S. agricultural exports have increased from $46.2 billion to a projected $60.5 billion."
While you're at it, will CAFTA increase exports of American agricultural products or not? Remember, our farmers do not currently have access to the member countries markets.
Finally, why is running a trade deficit bad? We've had a trade deficit for 30 years. The last time we had a trade surplus was during a recession. Germany and Japan have trade surpluses. Would you like to excange economies with them?
We could, of course, enact all kinds of protectionist tariffs on imports. The resulting recession might just create a trade surplus.
Yes, because third world countries can dump child and dollar-per-day labor produced products on our markets. This allows American business to abandon hard earned labor laws by merely crossing the border into Latin America.
More variety and lower prices for consumers is bad because....?
I didn't say it was bad. I said that abandoning all control of the industry at our border is bad. I said that the trade-off of the massive disruption in industry, our middle class, and the destabilization of Mexican labor was not worth the lower prices the consumers gained. I said that the middle class would pay dearly for those lower prices.
I'll make it easy for you "Between 1994 and 2005, global U.S. agricultural exports have increased from $46.2 billion to a projected $60.5 billion."
And I will make it clearer for you. Between 1996 and 2003 our agricultural imports increased from 33 billion to 46 billion. And- you can be sure that our agri imports exceed that projected 60.5 billion.
will CAFTA increase exports of American agricultural products or not?
I believe that CAFTA will increase some exports and allow much more imports- not to mention disrupt those countries economies just like Mexico's.
Finally, why is running a trade deficit bad?
A trade deficit in itself is not a bad thing. Inducing a trade deficit and disrupting our country in the manner that GATT, NAFTA, and the WTO have done has hurt many unnecessarily.
Trade tarriffs are not the devil. We have used them for a variety of reasons since Thomas Jefferson. Germany and Japan's economies were completely destroyed after WWII. We have had a "slight" advantage of winning the war and an intact manufacturing base to build our wealth on. It is apples and oranges to compare us and them. Somehow we had tariffs on their products in the 20th century and our economy was just fine.