NAFTA: Destroying American Manufacturing

In the early 1990s the North American Free Trade Agreement was sold to the American people by promising endless benefits job creation and rising incomes for U.S. workers, cheaper goods for American consumers and unseen surges in exports to markets that had never before been open to U.S.

After initially embracing NAFTA on false pretenses, the first myth to be busted was the promise of an increase in trade surplus with Mexico. While the U.S. held a small trade surplus with Mexico prior to NAFTA, by 2007 that turned into a $91 billion trade deficit. With Canada and Mexico combined, the U.S. has turned a $24 billion deficit into a $190 billion deficit in just 15 years - an astounding 691 percent increase.

NAFTA has outsourced jobs to Mexico where labor is incredibly cheap and the environment is a mere after-thought, thus driving down wages and forcing American workers into more direct competition with one another. U.S. manufacturing employment declined from 16.8 million people in 1993 to 13.9 million in 2007.

Over 20 percent of our country’s good manufacturing jobs have been lost during the NAFTA-era, only to be replaced by low-paying service sector jobs with little or no benefits.

Instead of creating jobs, NAFTA has sent revenues across the border where iconic American companies such as Coca Cola, Ford, General Motors, and General Electric have opened up production facilities in Mexico. The average line worker in a U.S. factory earns $18 per hour, whereas his Mexican counterpart will be lucky to make $3 per hour. Since 1993, 15 percent of employers in manufacturing, communication and wholesale distribution have shut down or relocated.

1993 300,000 family farms have been put out of business. Each year we import over $71 billion in food products - double the total pre-NAFTA. Those farmers lucky enough to survive are hanging on by a thread. Net farm incomes have declined by 13 percent over the last 15 years.

NAFTA eliminates tariffs, one of the few proven weapons to protect the U.S. against cut-wage competition and other predatory practices used to destroy our industry and subjugate our economy.

Eliminating tariffs through "free trade" means companies have no choice but to locate their production facilities in countries with the lowest cost labor sources

. Otherwise, they will go out of business fighting those who do.