Editorial: The trouble with NAFTA
An editorial
November 18, 2003
Ten years ago this week, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly approved the North American Free Trade Agreement, ushering in an era of essentially unrestricted trade among the United States, Canada and Mexico. The Capital Times was one of a handful of American newspapers that opposed the deal at the time, and we are now even more committed in our opposition.
Since the passage of NAFTA, the U.S. trade deficit has ballooned to close to $500 billion. And it continues to grow at a rapid rate, undermining this country's economic security to such an extent that, for the first time in his career as an investor, billionaire Warren Buffett has begun purchasing European currency because of his concerns about the impact the trade deficit could have on the value of the U.S. dollar.
The human costs are even more severe.
NAFTA has been a disaster for workers in the United States in general, and Wisconsin in particular. Of the close to three million manufacturing jobs lost in recent years, more than 500,000 can be directly attributed to factory closings by U.S.-based firms that have moved operations to Mexico. Whole industries with deep roots in Wisconsin - including the cookware manufacturing that was once a mainstay of employment in the Manitowoc area - are collapsing.
But if Wisconsin workers are losing out, one would think that Mexican workers would be gaining. Think again. Wages have actually dropped for Mexican factory workers, and in recent years multinational corporations have begun shuttering Mexican plants to shift operations to even-lower-wage regions in China.
Farmers in the United States, Canada and Mexico have suffered as well, as agribusiness interests have promoted overproduction and the dumping of crops, resulting in depressed prices in all three countries. The collapse of prices for beans and corn has forced hundreds of thousands of small farmers off their land in Mexico, and many of them have headed north to the United States looking for work.
Predictably, the Bush administration says the cure for the pathologies created by corporate-managed free trade is more corporate-managed free trade. Thus, this week, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick will meet in Miami with corporate lobbyists and representatives of Latin American and Caribbean countries to craft a Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement that has been referred to as "NAFTA on steroids." The good news is that leaders of a number of South American countries have begun to side with U.S. labor, farm, environmental, human rights and religious groups to oppose the FTAA scheme.
Preventing the extension of NAFTA via the FTAA is job No. 1 at this moment. But even if the FTAA is blocked, NAFTA will remain. And that is why, in the coming presidential campaign, it is essential that the Democrats nominate a candidate who is willing to challenge NAFTA. Dennis Kucinich is calling for the United States to withdraw from NAFTA and to then negotiate bilateral trade agreements with Canada and Mexico that protect workers and the environment. Howard Dean says he wants to renegotiate NAFTA to emphasize those priorities, and Dick Gephardt, John Edwards, Al Sharpton and Carol Moseley Braun are similarly critical. In contrast, John Kerry and Joe Lieberman, both NAFTA supporters a decade ago, have shown little willingness to change direction.
NAFTA needs to be a central issue in 2004 because the working families in the United States and abroad cannot afford another 10 years of corporate-managed free trade.
Published: 6:27 AM 11/18/03 |
