NAFTA was certainly a maker of "debris" since many jobs were lost and fouled up careers, job prospects, due to mistake of Clinton. Did he read that thing before signing it...NOT VERY LIKELY.
But eventually, millions have found out the hard way that then President Bill Clinton was completely and totally wrong about NAFTA. 20 facts below reveal how NAFTA is destroying the U.S. economy...
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is a Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. As PTA, NAFTA is supposed to be an agreement of a group of countries to levy low or zero tariffs against imports from all three members.
NAFTA went into effect in January of 1994, as a hotly debated issue with Presidential candidate Ross Perot describing [parapharased] the effects of NAFTA as "that sucking sound below the border because US jobs were quickly going there, hurting the USA." Those in support of the agreement argued that it would allow for cheap foreign goods to be imported by the United States, which would stimulate foreign economies, and contribute to globalization.
Those feebly in opposition to NAFTA were mainly labor unions that feared lost jobs and lower wages for American workers; environmental groups who feared dirty industries; and some politicians who feared correctly since it was so obvious - that businesses would relocate to Mexico because of lower pay, benefits, and taxes. One of these concerns is expressed through the unfunny cartoon depicting an American reading that the Labor Day picnic would be held in Mexico because that is where YOUR JOB went.
Besides NOT being a quick fix for Mexicans illegally crossing the border and heading for the United States, the predicted growth of the Mexican economy did not create more competitive jobs in Mexico, reducing the incentive for migration. The sky-rocketing rise of undocumented immigration since NAFTA was blamed on a few factors:
In conjunction with the reduction of tariffs, NAFTA allowed for the United States to grant large subsidies to American farmers. By so doing, American farmers were then able to export agricultural goods at a much lower price, undermining the Mexican farmers who had previously been reliant on exports to the United States. This made food cheaper in the US but caused many Mexican farmers to give up farming, and "cattle prodded them" to flee to the United States illegally.
Between the drug cartels making life dangerous and the cancellation of free tortillas (Mexican flat bread), still more farmers gave up farming.
Secondly, NAFTA’s tariff reductions that left Mexican factories disadvantaged allowed for certain big American firms, like union-hated Wal-Mart, to enter the Mexican market, and their lower prices also drove many Mexicans out of work, to the tune of 28,000 small businesses eliminated.
Finally, the debate about the success of NAFTA became as heated as the one over its going into effect. Although the agreement did establish free trade, agreed by pros and cons as a great thing, it disrupts all three economies. Apparently free trade allows countries to specialize in a certain area, and then import the goods they don’t produce at lower prices. But this plays havoc with the workers in the industry for which a country imports? For instance, DODGE displaced U.S. workers in the automobile manufacturing industry and Mexican workers were displaced in the agricultural industry. This leads complicates many questions about the general benefits of NAFTA and how it should influence future policy decisions.
The United States entered a new Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) in 2004 with the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). This began to effect NAFTA's three countries when it established free trade with Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic. Currently, free trade in much of Latin American has contributed greatly to the undocumented immigration by Latin Americans driven out of their respective jobs.
As for Americans:
#1 Over 845,000 American workers have been officially certified for Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) because they lost their jobs or suffered reduced hours due to imports from Mexico or Canada or because their factories were relocated to those nations. TAA is administered by the US Department of Labor (DOL)
#2 Estimates reveal that NAFTA has cost America well over a million jobs.
#3 U.S. manufacturers pay Mexican workers just a little over a dollar an hour to do jobs that American workers used to do. Dislike of union scale wages is one thing but "Avenged To the Nines" is wrong.
#4 The number of illegal immigrants residing in the United States has more than doubled since NAFTA started. NPR said wave of immigrants gained speed. Sciencedirect said immigration has doubled since NAFTA. Both were "Green checked".
#5 In the year prior to NAFTA, the U.S. had a trade surplus with Mexico and the trade deficit with Canada was "only" 29.6 billion dollars. In 2017, the U.S. had a combined trade deficit with Mexico and Canada of 177 billion dollars.
#6 It has been estimated that the U.S. economy loses approximately 9,000 jobs for every 1 billion dollars of goods that are imported from overseas.
#7 One professor has estimated that cutting the total U.S. trade deficit in half would create 5 million more jobs in the United States.
#8 Since the auto industry bailout, approximately 70 percent of all GM vehicles have been built outside the United States. In fact, many of them are now being built in Mexico.
#9 NAFTA hasn't worked out very well for Mexico either. Since 1994, the average yearly rate of economic growth in Mexico has been less than one percent.
#10 The exporting of massive amounts of government-subsidized U.S. corn down into Mexico has destroyed more than a million Mexican jobs and has helped fuel the continual rise in the number of illegal immigrants coming north.
#11 Someone making minimum wage in Mexico today can buy 38 percent fewer consumer goods than the day before NAFTA went into effect.
#12 Overall, the United States has lost a total of more than 56,000 manufacturing facilities since 2001.
#13 Back in the 1980s, more than 20 percent of the jobs in the United States were manufacturing jobs. Today, only about 9 percent of the jobs in the United States are manufacturing jobs.
#14 We have fewer Americans working in manufacturing today than we did in 1950 even though our population has more than doubled since then.
#15 Back in 1950, more than 80 percent of all men in the United States had jobs. Today, only 65 percent of all men in the United States have jobs.
#16 As I wrote about recently, one out of every six men in their prime working years (25 to 54) do not have a job at this point.
#17 Because we have shipped millions of jobs overseas, the competition for the jobs that remain has become extremely intense and this has put downward pressure on wages. Right now, half the country makes $27,520 a year or less from their jobs.
#18 When adults cannot get decent jobs, it is often children that suffer the most. It is hard to believe, but more than one out of every five children in the United States is living in poverty in 2014.
#19 In 1994, only 27 million Americans were on food stamps. Today, more than 46 million Americans are on food stamps.
#20 According to Professor Alan Blinder of Princeton University, 40 million more U.S. jobs could be sent offshore over the next two decades if current trends continue.
From 1991 to 1994, Mexico ran a trade deficit with the U.S. which moved to a surplus in 1995, increasing ever since. Besides getting DODGE, Mexico has become a major producer of automobiles, electronics and appliances, which combined with its status as Pemex being a large oil exporter.
Due to these factors, U.S. imports from Mexico climbed from $65 billion when the North American trade deal was passed to around $295 billion in 2016.
But the U.S. has been helped, especially in border states like Texas except for so many illegal immigrants driving down wages and jobs in general. Exports to Mexico have climbed from $68 billion in 1994 to an estimated $235 billion in 2016.
