Myth: NAFTA was a failure for the U.S.

Office of the U.S. Trade Representative ^ | November 2003 | press release

[1rudeboy]

•NAFTA has been a huge success for the U.S. and its NAFTA partners. It has helped Americans work smarter, earn more and increase purchasing power. It has contributed to more trade, higher productivity, better jobs, and higher wages.

•In ten years of NAFTA, total trade among the three countries has more than doubled, from $306 billion to $621 billion in 2003. That’s $1.7 billion in trade every day.

•U.S. exports to Canada and Mexico grew from $142 billion to $263 billion in NAFTA’s first ten years. And Mexican exports to the U.S. grew 242 percent, improving lives and reducing poverty in Mexico.

•Some claimed NAFTA would contribute to U.S. industrial decline and a “giant sucking sound.” But after NAFTA was passed in 1993:

--U.S. manufacturing output soared in the 1990s, up 44% in real terms.
--U.S. employment grew over 20 million between 1993 and 2000.
--U.S. manufacturing wages increased dramatically, with real hourly compensation up by 14.4% in the 10 years since NAFTA, more than double the 6.5% increase in the 10 years preceding NAFTA.
--Income gains and tax cuts from NAFTA were worth up to $930 each year for the average U.S. household of four.

•More recent problems for manufacturers and their employees came long after NAFTA. These problems are due to a recent recession from which the U.S. is now recovering strongly. Much is blamed on imports, but in fact 80% of the increase in the U.S. manufactures trade deficit in the last three years is attributable to reduced exports and weak demand overseas, not increased imports.

•Some blame NAFTA for recent economic problems. But in fact, during the recent U.S. economic downturn, U.S. imports from Mexico were up less than 2 percent (last three years). By contrast, the U.S. economy added more than 20 million jobs during a time when imports from Mexico were booming in 1993-2000 (up 241 percent).

•Clearly U.S. employment trends reflect the health of the U.S. economy far more than the negotiation of trade agreements like NAFTA.

[1rudeboy]

What a load. The money he saves on the shirt is spent elsewhere. You would have him simply buy the shirt.

[palmer]

The "elsewhere" is more imports.

[Pro-Bush]

Gotta love them crap covered Hepatitis green onions!

[1rudeboy]

Right, then. [chortle]

[Protagoras]

Lets abolish the income tax then he won't need to have deductions. I'm guessing you love the graduated income tax though.

[1rudeboy]

Before you blame NAFTA for the Hep A outbreak, shouldn't you, at minimum, attempt to demonstrate how the outbreak would not have occurred in the absence of NAFTA?

[FITZ]

Blame NAFTA? Of course ---- what else has destroyed the lives of so many that they'll pack themselves in boxcars and semi trailers to escape? The wonderful promise of great jobs for Mexicans in Mexico certainly did turn out to be a huge lie. They wouldn't be dying trying to escape their homeland if there were any hope left for it.

[FITZ]

NAFTA poop-covered onions are cheap at least. Deadly but cheap.

[Protagoras]

The Mc Jobs are all taken by illegals anyway, don't you read the truth around here?

[1rudeboy]

So you have a problem with the way social service programs are administered in this country. So do I, but I try to place the blame where it belongs, instead of casting-about for a culprit that serves my political ideology.

[general_re]

But as is obvious from debt levels and the trade deficits, "you" are squandering the savings on even more cheap imported crap.

And you know better than me what I should do with my money, right? So you'll just go ahead and make me spend my money in the manner you find acceptable, by making sure that the shirt I really wanted to buy is no longer competitive, is that it? Am I missing anything? Is there any other aspect of my life you would like to govern, or will you settle for running my pocketbook?

It's very simple. When domestic textile manufacturers make shirts that are competitive on price and quality, I'll buy them. If they're not, I won't. But either way, they're not entitled to my money, any more than I'm entitled to a free shirt. I don't ask for handouts from them, and I don't offer any in return.

[1rudeboy]

I refer you to my reply #26.

[palmer]

And you know better than me what I should do with my money, right?

I'm only pointing out that your domestic spending has an economic ripple effect. It's up to you to take advantage of that by seeking out high quality American made merchandise.

It's very simple. When domestic textile manufacturers make shirts that are competitive on price and quality, I'll buy them. If they're not, I won't.

Unfortunately it's not that simple. Stores like WalMart have elevated the convenience of one stop shopping above getting the highest quality or even the best value. Quality American products can often be found on the internet if you are willing to go look for them.

[Geritol]

Comparing the constitution's leveling the playing field between states each with representative governments and support for private property and freedom, and NAFTA's attempt to level the playing field between the US and a second or third world socialist country to our south is like comparing Eutruscan art to flying pigs.

[MrFreedom]

social

[Willie Green]

I'm guessing you love the graduated income tax though.

Wrong again, as usual.
If we're to have a personal income tax, I favor the "flat tax" with minimal deductions or loopholes. I can understand the validity of a "personal exemption" and standard allowance for nonworking spouse and dependents, but not much beyond that. (Maybe charitable deductions, but I'd have fairly strict limits as to what qualifies for that.) I'm certainly not a big fan of the excessive and manipulative "incentives" and "credits" that contaminate the tax code.

In general, I'd like to see it so simplified that H&R Block would be out of business.

[1rudeboy]

As I alluded to earlier, your typical protectionist believes that the $2 you save buying a cheaper shirt simply evaporates. And since it is vapor anyway, your typical protectionist sees nothing wrong with forcing you to spend the $2 on a more expensive shirt.

[Tribune7]

To paraphrase another member here, sometimes it's good to give the hornet's nest a good whack.

You should have worked in something about drug legalization and the improbability of the Theory of Evolution.

[Moby Grape]

The first thing we need to all understand about textiles going off-shore is that the cause cannot be placed into a single bucket:

1. The consumer helped drive them away. How? Once any ONE company began importing and offering the SAME quality at a fraction of the price, the buying public BOUGHT and BOUGHT...so what was the competition to do? Import, or go out of bossiness.

2. EPA, TAXES, OSHA (created under Nixon), and just general government red tape drove many off-shore.

3. Corporate greed. The above-mentioned governmental pressures helped fuel thought of moving off-shore, but there can be little doubt that for some companies, a higher profit margin, regardless of the other factors, was a component in the decisions.

4. UNIONS....need I say more.

If you, depending on your age, will recall, the first textile industry to suffer great loss of USA based manufacturing jobs was the apparel industry. It was easy to pack thousands of pants and shirts into overseas shipping containers, and the virtual extinction of state side apparel manufacturing occured YEARS before NAFTA.

It is fair to say that NAFTA has in some ways made it perhaps easier, or more advantageous for some industries to move outside our borders, but it is nonsense to claim that NAFTA is the cause of the loss of textile jobs in the Carolinas. At the turn of the century the textile jobs were in the northeast...Unions drove the south, not NAFTA. And the textile jobs began leaving the states long before NAFTA.

[palmer]

your typical protectionist believes that the $2 you save buying a cheaper shirt simply evaporates.

I must not be a typical protectionist.