I didn’t say that free trade is the sole cause of anything. It just makes it much worse, according to all economic indicators. I suppose you have heard about Ford building a new plant in old Mexico. The reason is, of course, that labor is cheaper in Mexico. Before the free trade agreements, such as NAFTA, manufactured goods coming into the United States from Mexico had a tariff applied to them. Now Ford can take advantage of the low wages and there will be no tariff on the product that wipes out the wage savings. So Ford moves the manufacturing outside the United States, taking the jobs with them.
” and there have been many jobs created that would not have happened otherwise.”
The exact same argument is made for illegal immigration. The AFL-CIO would disagree with you. The AFL-CIO is against illegal immigration, for a change.