Rick Santorum- “NAFTA is a Good Thing”
By Javier Manjarres
Three GOP presidential hopefuls- Rick Santorum, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich addressed the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce’s ‘Business Speaks’ conference in hopes of wooing its business leaders’ support of their jobs and economic agendas. During his speech, Santorum stated that the North American Free Trade Agreement, aka “NAFTA” was a “good thing,” and gave a spirited defense of the trade agreement.
Remember that it was good ‘ol Ross Perot who believed that the ratification of NAFTA would set off a “giant sucking sound” that would lead to the loss of American jobs, manufacturing, and investment to Mexico. Fortunately for the United States, that sucking sound never came to fruition and Perot’s alarmist protectionism went by the wayside, as exports spiked and the economy added over 18 million new jobs in the ten years following the signing of NAFTA.
I am willing to bet good money that there’s more than one protectionist lurking out there just waiting to pounce and inform us that NAFTA was an economic Armageddon which cost American jobs and drove our country off the cliff before President Obama was even a sparkle on the political landscape. Was Rick Santorum correct about NAFTA?
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More BS from Javier and Santorum. NAFTA has been a disaster for the US and Mexico. You want to know why Mexican’s are fleeing the country and coming to the US illegally? In some cases, Nafta produced results that were exactly the opposite of what was promised.
For instance, domestic industries were dismantled as multinationals imported parts from their own suppliers.
Local farmers were priced out of the market by food imported tariff-free. Many Mexican farmers simply abandoned their land and headed north.
While there has been some media coverage of NAFTA’s ruinous impact on US industrial communities, there has been even less media attention paid to its catastrophic effects in Mexico:
NAFTA, by permitting heavily-subsidized US corn and other agri-business products to compete with small Mexican farmers, has driven the Mexican farmer off the land due to low-priced imports of US corn and other agricultural products. Some 2 million Mexicans have been forced out of agriculture, and many of those that remain are living in desperate poverty. These people are among those that cross the border to feed their families. (Meanwhile, corn-based tortilla prices climbed by 50%. No wonder many so Mexican peasants have called NAFTA their ‘death warrant.’
NAFTA’s service-sector rules allowed big firms like Wal-Mart to enter the Mexican market and, selling low-priced goods made by ultra-cheap labor in China, to displace locally-based shoe, toy, and candy firms. An estimated 28,000 small and medium-sized Mexican businesses have been eliminated.
Wages along the Mexican border have actually been driven down by about 25% since NAFTA, reported a Carnegie Endowment study. An over-supply of workers, combined with the crushing of union organizing drives as government policy, has resulted in sweatshop pay running sweatshops along the border where wages typically run 60 cents to $1 an hour.
So rather than improving living standards, Mexican wages have actually fallen since NAFTA. The initial growth in the number of jobs has leveled off, with China’s even more repressive labor system luring US firms to locate there instead.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0425-30.htm
Also note that these free trade agreements are merely sovereignty sapping building blocks of the New World Order. Only a blind ignorant fool supports them.
Patrick Henry citing a progressive lefty site to buttress his case, nice!
That was merely one of many sites, including the CBO. I don’t care where information comes from if it’s accurate. I’m looking for truth, not blind ideology.
Here’s a good argument for why Free Trade as envisioned in the proliferating Globalist Free Trade agreements don’t work.
http://mises.org/daily/1420
Free trade has necessary conditions. Today these conditions are not met. This point has escaped Joe Salerno and George Reisman (both writing on Mises.org), as it has a vast number of other people.
The case for free trade is based on David Ricardo’s principle of comparative advantage. Ricardo addressed the question how trade could take place between country A and country B (England and Portugal in his example) if country B was more efficient in the production of tradable goods (cloth and wine in his example) than A.
In other words, if Portugal could produce both cloth and wine at lower cost than England, how could trade between the countries benefit each?
Yeah, but they’re RIGHT!!
The giant sucking sound is caused by China & the Federal government – not NAFTA
China has sucked up a lot of the manufacturing industry from Mexico even.
I just checked and Romney and Santorum were both for NAFTA and both apparently still think it is a good thing. The absurdity of NAFTA is amazing. These morons who supported it now what to be president. Why? Because apparently they probably want to run the economy into the ground some more. These are evil people who are running the government. You can’t say that they are incompetent or stupid. They are evil and they are screwing us on purpose. Those sheep who keep voting for these nut cases will get what they voted for; another screw job. I believe the best course of action would be to let it rot and start over.
http://verydumbgovernment.blogspot.com/2011/11/neutered-newt-helped-cause-economic.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3GcnHe9wDY&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Seems Newt thinks it’s a good thing too.
NAFTA has worked for big-business, that has the capability to move manufacturing out of the USA. The government has the ability to manipulate numbers and the results of NAFTA on the American Workforce, so their data is difficult to verify. A good place to start may be how NAFTA affects the American worker, and the feedback that the unions receive.Here is an excerpt from the AFL-CIO’s website concerning the effects of NAFTA. Although, I am neutral on the issues of private unionization, the results may be enlightening.
How Many Jobs Have We Lost?
More than 3 million manufacturing jobs have disappeared since 1998, and the Economic Policy Institute estimates 59 percent—or 1.78 million—of these jobs have been lost due to the explosion in the U.S. manufacturing trade deficit over the period.
Goldman Sachs estimates 400,000–600,000 professional services and information sector jobs moved overseas in the past few years, accounting for about half of the total net job loss in the sector over the period. A Deloitte Research survey found one-third of all major financial institutions are already sending work offshore, with 75 percent reporting they would do so within the next 24 months. A U.C. Berkeley study found 25,000 to 30,000 new outsourcing-related jobs advertised in India by U.S. firms in just one month in 2003.
One service sector hard hit by job losses is information technology, especially software. The pro-outsourcing consulting firm Global Insight estimates we lost 104,000 information technology jobs to offshore outsourcing between 2000 and 2003, more than a quarter of the 372,000 jobs lost in the sector overall during the period. The Economic Policy Institute found employment in U.S. software-producing industries fell by 128,000 jobs from 2000 to early 2004, while about 100,000 new jobs producing software for export to the U.S. were created in India over the same period of time.
States are outsourcing public sector jobs as well, though most state governments do not know exactly how many. At least forty states contract out administration of electronic benefit cards for the food stamps program offshore. In one audit, the state of Washington found 36 out of 41 agencies were contracting out work overseas. A recent study by INPUT Research projects outsourcing of state and local government technology contracts will grow from $10 billion last year to $23 billion in 2008.
From November 2002 to January 2004, the U.S. Department of Labor certified 246,398 workers who lost their jobs due to trade for Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA). This is in addition to the estimated 1,112,775 workers who were certified for TAA between 1994 and the end of 2002. These figures are very under-inclusive: they only count workers who know about the TAA program, apply for it, and qualify under the program’s strict eligibility requirements. The numbers do not include most service sector workers or workers who have lost their jobs due to shifts in production to China—neither group is eligible for TAA. Nor do they include workers erroneously denied TAA certification by the Labor Department.
The Economic Policy Institute estimates that between 1993 and 2000, our lopsided trade policies, reflected in the explosive increase in the U.S. trade deficit, cost Americans a net 3 million jobs and job opportunities. The growth in the NAFTA trade deficit alone is associated with nearly 900,000 lost jobs and job opportunities through 2002.
Trade-related job loss does not just hurt individual workers and their families. Entire communities are affected negatively as tax revenues fall, dependency on public assistance increases, and incomes stagnate. And as the off-shoring and job loss spreads to sectors with higher technology and skills that drive innovation and productivity, it puts the long-term competitiveness of the American economy at risk.
“Patrick Henry” has some good thoughts, but facts are difficult to track to NAFTA. Most negatives mentioned may be a result of other government actions.
Opening trade has been a bonus for people from the beginning of time. Less government interference is always good!
There are too many variables to see a causal relationship between NAFTA and job loss. More directly, the decline of our economy due to increasing socialism and deficit spending, high taxes and overregulation of business, has reduced our ability to produce jobs and products.
Protectionism, on the other hand, has always led to inefficiency, high cost, poverty, animosity and even war.
Santorum shows he has the experience and knowledge to tell the truth and will not use emotional hype to gain votes. He has clear ideas about how to step out of the way and let business thrive in a free trade environment. Americans can and will win if government takes off the handcuffs.
Rick Santorum will be in Fort Myers Tuesday, 1/24 at 6:30 pm for an event. Here’s the link for your information: http://leecountypatriots.com/SantorumMeet.htm
Santorum was voted the most corrupt senator in 2006. Yea he has experience all right … making money at the expense of the taxpayers!
Santorum may be partially correct, NAFTA has been good for large business. Large corporations can relocate plants overseas with cheap labor. It’s the American worker that has suffered, we now have a service industry with little industrial base. For those old enough to remember pre-1990′s, America used to be a self-sufficient nation.
It is not the case anymore.
That’s right.
We could not fight a “World War” now because we’ve become too dependent on too many things from outside.
The “Arsenal of Democracy” is no more. We don’t even make enough of our own steel anymore.
We need to repeal all the trade acts and have the guts to impose our tariff laws so American workers can have the kind of wages and benefits they’re supposed to be having before WE’RE dragged down to “Third World” status.
Patti H. – “low priced corn” and “corn based tortillas up 50%”? Sounds like something else at work… could it be US Energy Policy?
Doc – Your source (AFL/CIO)appears to blame NAFTA for job outsourcing beyond the North American continent. Does the NAFTA agreement cover India and the rest of the planet, or is the AFL/CIO trying to convince us that NAFTA is the source of all our woes? It is likely that the trend of losing manufacturing jobs started with the peak of union power(over-reach and political meddling) and is continuing along that course.
t2t
The government NAFTA Data is positive, but that is understandable.
We see that with current unemployment data, numbers are easily manipulated, or certain statistics are not included. Santorum may be getting all his NAFTA “success” data from government data, or through the influence of large businesses. The union data may be a closer representation of the actual consequences for American workers. There’s no doubt that NAFTA has worked for large corporations, but does it work for the actual American citizen? America has transitioned from a strong manufacturing base, to a service economy in several decades. The chance of upward mobility for average American seems to have diminished substantially with the introduction of NAFTA. It’s much cheaper to assembleand manufacture products with cheap labor/less regulation elsewhere. It started with Mexico, but soon cheaper labor was secured in other sections of the globe as well. The end result is the same, less opportunity for American workers.
Javier, I am truly disappointed in you for the unnecessary and provocative name calling. One doesn’t have to be isolationist or “protectionist” to know that NAFTA was, at the very least a mixed bag. Many of your astute readers have correctly observed that it hasn’t been a good thing for Mexicans and has opened the door for the NAU (one common currency for Mexico, Canada and the US-like the European Union) thanks to our former “Republican” president George Bush, Jr. and his father GW Bush, Sr. Although Bush vehemently denied his support for the NAU, Jerome Corsi’s book helped enlighten the American people to his sinister plan to facilitate the Trans-Texas Corridor, using Eminent domain to seize private property and create a superhighway, 4 football fields wide running through America’s heartland from Mexico to Canada and controlled by a Spanish conglomerate-not even managed by America! Please read the book by Corsi, “The Late Great USA” and give people ALL the facts!
Javier supports Marco Rubio, and Marco Rubio supports this, big government and wasteful spending. Marco Rubio is another neocon. Take what they say with a grain of salt.
I support Marco Rubio and every time I hear the term “neocon” it makes me want to run away from Ron Paul as fast as I can.
Amen….
NAFTA is costing the taxpayers billions. It is not good for America. Free trade can be worked out where it helps our economy but we do not need NAFTA. You can thank Newt Gingrich for this one because he pushed and pushed until he got it passed. He is also responsible for GATT. Newt is a Fabian socialist and he would be worse than Obama. Folks wake the hell up already! We will never progess as long as we keep voting in these corrupt politicians. Santorum and Newt are two peas in a pod. They are personal friends and support each other. What they say in public is meaningless, they are both playing us like a fiddle. Santorum’s grandfather and his entire family in Italy are red communists! Something has to stick folks. He is no friend of free speech and States rights. Neither candidate will stop our downward spiral.
I remember back when they passed this abomination. People like me begged them not to vote for it. And the candy-ass talk show hosts like Limbaugh, Hannity, Liddy, and many others, supported it too. So here you have liberals and the neocons drinking the NAFTA Kool Aid and the end result from that agreement had been massive unemployment and massive underempolyment. It took awhile for the bubble to burst, but I believe the economic problems have more to do with a whole sector of the economy in the USA that has suffered decline under NAFTA. Limbaugh called people like me “kooks.” Well, us kooks knew exactly what was going to happen; and it did. The country will probably never recover from it until smarter people are put into government, or it just goes away completely. These guys are utterly useless. So we are left with Romney, Santorum, and Gingrich who all supported NAFTA which probably started the downturn.
The idea of some kind of recovery is laughable. What are we supposed to recover with? Sure, there may be a bubble here and there but it will always explode into another failure. It was designed that way.
http://www.verydumbgovernment.blogspot.com
Patrick is right on and NAFTA is not a good thing for the American Industrial workforce. Most people refer to job loss as informational and professional services but industrial manufacturing is all but gone. Heavy regulations, quality restraints, and safety rules constrict our ability to compete with foreign companies that are not following these constraints. Foreign entities need to pony up the cost of these regulations and add them to the price of their goods and services if they want to make them available in the UNITED STATES of AMERICA.
Perhaps Rick Santorum can enlighten everyone, by informing us, of the 18 million jobs that were added to the economy in the decade after signing the NAFTA treaty, how many were directly attributed to the treaty itself? how many were attributed to USA population growth.
Over 3 Million American jobs were sent to other countries and as of yet there is no agency keeping tabs and reporting on offshoring of jobs.
I Suggest Senators ,of which Santorum was once, go over these treaties
with a fine tooth comb before they ratify.
I’m a Certfied Machinist, Toolmaker and QC Inspector. I thought educating myself in a field I truly loved would insure at least a degree of job security. What I hadn’t planned for was that Bill Clinton would decide that we were going to become a “service economy,” sign NAFTA and destroy our manufacturing base.
I was laid off within two weeks of the signing of that hideous law and the company I worked for relocated their manufacturing operations to Mexico and have had a great deal of difficulty ever since finding a good place to work.
Years later, we have lost millions of good manfacturing jobs that once provided a diversity of jobs for Americans who were smart enough for college, yet preferred to work with their hands. We’re still the world’s largest economy, but we don’t make our own products anymore.
If we had a sector of the economy that could meet that need once again, do you think we’d still be in the economic mess we’re in? Manufacturing was less succeptible to bubbles and provided above average wages and the opportunity for advancement.
Santorum is sadly misinformed if he thinks that NAFTA was a good idea. I’m here to tell you it was a great mistake.
Let’s see could it be that our tax rate for business is nearly the highest in the world or could POSSIBLY be that labor unions priced their workers out of the market…..maybe tax loopholes created by government and lobbyists…hmmmmmmm.
Oh….I forgot – regulations out of the wazoo and an out of whack and gestapo like EPA.
Maybe you’d like to go breathe the air in Peking or Beijing, whatever they call it??
Remember, there was concern over whether the air would be so polluted that the athletes would have breathing difficulties?
That’s what you get without regulations.
When will you folks get this?
Did any of you learn what tariff laws are?
If we had the balls to enforce them, we’d have manufacturing jobs here because the tariffs would keep the prices of cheaply made foreign goods competitive with American goods.
Use of the tariff laws would prevent dumping cheap goods on our markets like China dumps cheap steel.
Have any of you noticed that with the mass exporting of manufacturing jobs away from the USA, only quality has gone down, not the prices.
The only benefits are greater profits for the businesses and less money for working Americans.
NO, NAFTA WAS / IS WRONG!
Get us off this sinking ship, 2002 warnings to congress came true:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifJG_oFFDK0
Israel & CIA agree on foreign policy candidate, guess who?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnH0dxdiRzc&feature=player_embedded