I wonder if anyone has a voting record on NAFTA I wonder if Dorgan -D ND voted yes on it.
Dorgan is the author of "Take This Job and Ship It"
I remember thinking at least Clinton would kill NAFTA but no it flew through a dem congress and he signed it.
Amazing.
Headline says signed by Clinton in 93. First line of story says signed by US in 92.
This inconsistency is consistent with the confusion that is NAFTA. The concept of NAFTA was originally "free trade". But after labor unions, corporations, environmentalists and dozens of other special interests and campaign contributors in all three countries were done, there was nothing left in it that was "free trade" except the name.
It became "managed trade". For example, the Democrat Senators from WA, MT, SD, MN and led by ND created a very expensive process for Canada to ship its vast energy resources to the USA. This hurt both Canada and the USA when the free market would have been in the best interest of both countries. But it served the special interests of those Senators along the Canadian border and their campaign contributors.
Numerous other examples exist. It is understandable that NAFTA critics on the left would not understand the realities of economics. But it is frustrating that NAFTA critics on the right accept the mislabeling of this managed trade agreement and unfairly malign it for the wrong reasons.
I always find myself reminding people that Bill Clinton WAS the president who signed NAFTA into law when the discussion of my area's extremely high unemployment rate and gutted work force comes up in conversation. Not that the Republicans are without fault, but people fail to realize that it was a two party sellout.