Public Citizen: NAFTA at 20: A Million Jobs Lost

[amborin]

NAFTA at 20: One Million Lost U.S. Jobs, Higher Income Inequality, Doubled Agriculture Trade Deficit With Mexico and Canada, Displacement and Instability in Mexico, and Corporate Attacks on Environmental Laws


WASHINGTON, D.C. – On the eve of the North American Free Trade Agreement’s (NAFTA) 20th anniversary (Jan. 1), a new Public Citizen report shows that not only did promises made by proponents not materialize, but many results are exactly the opposite. Such outcomes include a staggering $181 billion U.S. trade deficit with NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada, one million net U.S. jobs lost because of NAFTA.... larger agricultural trade deficits with Mexico and Canada, and more than $360 million paid to corporations after “investor-state” tribunal attacks on, and rollbacks of, domestic public interest policies.

The study tracks the promises made by U.S. corporations like Chrysler and Caterpillar to create specific numbers of American jobs if NAFTA was approved, and reveals government data showing that instead, they fired U.S. workers and moved operations to Mexico. The data also show how post-NAFTA trade and investment trends have contributed to middle-class pay cuts, which in turn contributed to growing income inequality; how since NAFTA, U.S. trade deficit growth with Mexico and Canada has been 45 percent higher than with countries not party to a U.S. Free Trade Agreement, and how U.S. manufacturing and services exports to Canada and Mexico have grown at less than half the pre-NAFTA rate.

snip

.... the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which is NAFTA-on-steroids.”

http://www.citizen.org/pressroom/pressroomredirect.cfm?ID=4050

[nc4bo]

1. A Clinton, Inc. gift that keeps giving. So generous. nt

[Ferd Berfel]

2. TPP isn't as much about Trade as it is about

ceding US Federal, State and local sovereignty to trans-national and foreign Corporations and turning in the planet into fascist oligarchy. And Obama, is trying reeeal hard to make that happen.

[bahrbearian]

3. I thought that Obama re-negotiated NAFTA

[Ferd Berfel]

4. just another campaign promise

oh well.

[CorporatistNation]

7. Same S**t W/ Hillary! Listen to Rosario Dawson Especially Her Comments On Net Neutrality!

Rosario has it right as do many like myself... "THEY" do not like US communicating and organizing with one another...

The internet is the last bastion of FREE speech... Once it is Pay Tot Play... WE are OUT! And "THEY" Have Total Control!

[Karma13612]

19. Swhat I have been saying all along,

Net neutrality is crucial.

I would love Bernie to make a comment about it to underscore Rosario Dawson's comment.

Works well with his platform on needing to fight as a whole to create a better country for the 99%.

The net is our main organizational tool.

[closeupready]

5. This is all on Bill Clinton.

[Ferd Berfel]

14. Hillary supported it at the time - full throated (as they say)

She thought it was the greatest thing going at the time.

SO when did she triangulate around it?

[Octafish]

6. Hillary: TPP is the ''gold standard in trade agreements.''

A Timeline Of Hillary Clinton's Evolution On Trade

Domenico Montanaro
NPR, April 21, 2015

EXCERPT...

Yet, previously as secretary of state, Clinton called the Trans-Pacific Partnership the "gold standard in trade agreements." In her second memoir, Hard Choices, released in 2014, Clinton lauded the deal, saying it "would link markets throughout Asia and the Americas, lowering trade barriers while raising standards on labor, the environment, and intellectual property." She even said it was "important for American workers, who would benefit from competing on a more level playing field." She also called it "a strategic initiative that would strengthen the position of the United States in Asia."

SNIP...

It also highlights Clinton's complicated history with trade. Her husband brokered and passed the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, in 1993. The move irked labor unions, which are key to organizational efforts in Democratic campaigns. As first lady, in 1996, Clinton trumpeted NAFTA as "proving its worth."

CONTINUED...

http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/04/21/401123124/a-timeline-of-hillary-clintons-evolution-on-trade

[CorporatistNation]

8. ONLY Point I Would Make Is That Labor Union MGT Has Now Been Absorbed Into The Corporatist

Agenda while the rank and file membership in Labor Unions themselves has shrunk to a shadow of its former self 30-40-50 years ago.

Organized Labor in this country is now much more a PAWN of the Corporatists, certainly not the INDEPENDENT political force that it was previously. In fact we have labor union mgt often siding with the Corporatist pre-selected candidate (Hillary), while the rank and file are aligning themselves with the anti-"Establishment" candidate(s) be that Bernie or Trump.

[Wellstone ruled]

10. After the Supreme Court Ruling this past week,,

we can only hope this changes. There are so many Union Members that will step up and force changes at the top. Watch for the first changes to come out of the Midwest area,especially the Teamsters after the screwing they have taken on their Pensions.

[amborin]

13. yes, this is a problem; the Pres

of the UAW international used to play golf with GM CEOs, too cozy.....and gets undemocratic

[Karma13612]

20. My local 1199 SEIU rep

Can only be proHillary or keep her trap shut.

So, since she is proBernie she keeps her trap shut.

Very sad, but she has been told to follow the company line, or else.

Obviously she does what she wants on NY primary day and the general, of course.

[rhett o rick]

9. She said she wanted to "level the playing field" which is code for bringing American

wages down to the level competitive with China. She also said it would raise standards, "while raising standards on labor, the environment, and intellectual property." She of course meant raising the standards in China while lowering them in the USofA. So was it a outright lie? And besides the meme that these corporate written Trade Agreements do not raise anyone's standards.

These Trade Agreements are written by corporations to enslave the workers of the world and she supports that. More profits for daddy Goldman-Sachs.

[Octafish]

15. The ''End-Game'' memo from Larry Summers.

Larry Summers
and the Secret "End-Game" Memo

Thursday, August 22, 2013
By Greg Palast for Vice Magazine

EXCERPT...

The year was 1997. US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was pushing hard to de-regulate banks. That required, first, repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act to dismantle the barrier between commercial banks and investment banks. It was like replacing bank vaults with roulette wheels.

Second, the banks wanted the right to play a new high-risk game: "derivatives trading." JP Morgan alone would soon carry $88 trillion of these pseudo-securities on its books as "assets."

Deputy Treasury Secretary Summers (soon to replace Rubin as Secretary) body-blocked any attempt to control derivatives.

But what was the use of turning US banks into derivatives casinos if money would flee to nations with safer banking laws?

[font color="green"]The answer conceived by the Big Bank Five: eliminate controls on banks in every nation on the planet – in one single move. It was as brilliant as it was insanely dangerous. [/font color]

CONTINUED...

http://www.gregpalast.com/larry-summers-and-the-secret-end-game-memo/

[kristopher]

17. thank you.

[rhett o rick]

18. First I want to say that I greatly appreciate your posts. Always very informative.

Second, where is this "end-game" headed? There has to be someone that has an idea. This is a worldwide giant bubble that will collapse. I think the Clinton Class is grabbing all the golden eggs they can before the Goose dies.

[Octafish]

21. A few fortunates will be able to afford survival.

In the short term, continued roll out of Feudalism. It's got all the trappings now, without the immediate torture etc that the Princes, Barons and Lords enjoyed. When the Kochs no longer sell toilet paper, they'll take to the helipads and airports and jet to safety on some remote Nordic Isle.

In the longer term, wars, famine, ecological devastation, food shortages, human displacement. Those who survive may envy the dead, excluding the wealthy, of course. There may be some who survive all the devastation, thanks to survivor foods and shelters in the deep woods.

They may have bought some time. Then they, being among the most successful financially of all humans, yet least successful socially, at least, will rot in eternity knowing that they had an opportunity to use their wealth to make this a survivable world for ALL.

I pray that we can move toward and achieve the kind of future Jacque Fresco invisions:

He's got ideas for the real New New Deal:



http://www.thevenusproject.com/about/resume

Remember when ALL Democrats liked the New Deal? Not just the ones on Social Security?

[Dems to Win]

11. And the Democratic Establishment thinks Clinton can beat Trump...

Trump will hammer her on the bad trade deals signed by her husband.

Worst candidate the Dem leaders could have possibly chosen, imho.

[Ferd Berfel]

16. ...shitty trade deals signed by Wild Bill

and FULLY SUPPORTED by her at the time. Trump is not going to leave that out.

He will kick the crap out of here on these particular points, she will pretend that she has triangulated or evolved around her previous positions (or worse lie about them creating a crushing news cycle for herself in the weeks after) - and she will loose.

[AzDar]

12. Hillary LOVES her some NAFTA ( and other disastrous trade deals)...she also loves to lie about them.

[amborin]

22. kicking