[Recourse]

Oh, really. What do you think the Caribbean Basin Initiative was? In 1982, President Reagan proposed the Caribbean Basin Initiative, which provided duty free access to the U.S. market on a nonreciprocal basis to a large number of products from the region.

Reagan also was the first U.S. politician to propose the idea of NAFTA in 1979.

[RockyMtnMan]

ANYONE who is against capital investment in the US should be shot!

In just about every speach Reagan gave he spoke of creating jobs through trickle-down economics. His goal was job creation, if free-trade doesn't lead to job creation then he would have been against it. Just because it sounded like a good idea at the time doesn't mean it's a good idea now.

The question that must be asked is; Does free-trade lead to capital investment in the domestic economy? Without that investment by either US or foreign companies new businesses are not created. No new business, no new economic expansion. It's very simple, if the big multinational corporations do not spend some of the wealth acquired overseas domestically only they will benefit from the earnings.

Share prices may increase but without a strong consumer/investor base that won't matter.