Back                                                    NAFTA and other trade agreements

I've been hearing a lot about how good free trade is for our economy. People, I've been to Thailand, Indonesia, and some other third world countries. How can we compete with workers who make, sometimes, three or four dollars a day. First how long would they have to save (If they could save.) to buy a U.S. made TV.

Sure we get cheap products from abroad but is it really good for our economy? If you save money on the products you do buy at the expense of costing Americans their jobs you will eventually loose that gain to the tax increase that will be made necessary by the loss of revenue from them. (People who are out of work can't pay their fair share.) & that's on a even playing field.

The Chinese rate their currency so as to make it more expensive to import into their country then to export from it. Most of the third world countries (Such as Mexico.) don't worry about environmental standers or workers rights. If we want to live like they do in India, Mexico, or Indonesia then we will be able to compete.

I'm not an isolationist but I do believe trade should be fair and giving tax breaks to businesses that take their jobs overseas isn't fair.

I can only wonder how long it will take for C.E.O.s to realize that by killing jobs here they are killing their own businesses. (Without jobs people will have no money to buy their products.) (Supple and DEMAND)

I also hear from places like FOX news and Glenn Beck how Unions are so bad for the country. People let me ask you a question. How come it's the unionized first world countries that have the greatest share of the worlds per capita wealth and the non-union third world countries that have the most poverty?

We can and really must have free trade but we have to make the playing field level. If other countries want to compete for our market, we have to have trade deals that cover: Human rights and environmental standers. We also have to get guarantees that they won't use currency controls or subsidies to gain an unfair advantage over our companies. We can't give tax breaks for companies taking their manufacturing base off shore & We have to maintain and protect our intellectual property.

I've been hearing (Especially on Fox News) how Obama is backing away from NAFTA. People all he said was he thought it should be renegotiated. (I agree, let's take a good look at it and many of our trade agreements).

We should be sure that we can compete. If our companies have to pay a minimum wage here, let's not let them pay a poverty wage in another country. If they can't use child labor here, let's not let them use it overseas. If they can't destroy our environment, let's not let them destroy someone else's. (See Bhopal India.)

The above paragraph also goes for foreign companies we trade with.