Reply #15: NAFTA [View All]

[rontun]

The difficulty in assessing either candidate's position on NAFTA is that they both have evolving perspectives. The Clinton administration pushed heartily for NAFTA, garnering Republican support while angering many Democrats.

Clearly, people in Ohio resent NAFTA and the impact it has had on shipping jobs overseas. Once an industrial powerhouse, Ohio has lost nearly a quarter of a million manufacturing jobs since NAFTA was enacted, a trend that had begun earlier but intensified once the trade agreement was in place.

What's disturbing about Ohio is that Wal-Mart is now the largest employer in the state, with literally thousands of former manufacturing workers having lost their good paying jobs with good benefits now forced to work for crappy wages and no benefits at a retailer that continues to profit from free trade agreements that shift jobs overseas.

NAFTA, however, isn't the only problem, as it applies only to North American trade, and its biggest impact has been shifting jobs to Mexico. The more damaging trade agreements are those encouraging job shifts to China and India.

NAFTA is a symbol of what's wrong when we enter into agreements that are not fair to American workers. We need to ensure that employee rights, environmental protections, and policies regarding government subsidies of industries and currency trades are equitable. In other words, there must be a level playing field.

Hillary Clinton is going to take the brunt of the abuse in this debate because her husband's administration was the force behind NAFTA and subsequent trade agreements, and so much of her claim to preparedness is based upon her active involvement in the administration and its policies.