Trump and NAFTA

Trump and NAFTA

Trump will have to fight the most powerful interests of corporate America to end NAFTA, which he now threatens to do. Any study of NAFTA since its inception in 1993 finds direct benefits to the growth of U.S. Domestic Production(GDP), not to mention the benefits to Canada and Mexico. It is unnecessary to cite studies since there are many and they all find benefits.

In the initial years NAFTA eliminated thousands of jobs. The U.S. textile industry nearly disappeared after NAFTA. In North Carolina, for example, there were 288 thousand jobs in 1990 in textile mills and apparel manufacturing. By the end of 2016 it was 42 thousand. Across the country these same industries had 1.629 million jobs in 1990; by 2016 it was 359 thousand. In the cut and sew industry alone jobs dropped from 749 thousand in 1990 to only 105.8 thousand by 2016.

Much of the NAFTA related job loss occurred before NAFTA generated a significant increase in trade along with new production and investment. Over the 24 years of NAFTA new trade related production expanded U.S. GDP and generated replacement jobs. Whether the new jobs generated because of NAFTA are more than jobs lost because of NAFTA is irrelevant to the current Trump demand. Current NAFTA trading does support U.S. establishment employment in 2017, which guarantees killing NAFTA will cut jobs and do noticeable harm to employment.

Corporate America will not be happy to see an end to NAFTA, but the job loss will be a minimal concern in NAFTA matters. They have always had the money and clout to get their way, but corporate nerves do get frayed with Trump bluster. If Trump cared about the working class and acted as a leader, he would ignore the NAFTA fight and work to change the horrendous federal personal income tax that bores down so heavily on wage earners. He would work to revise and enforce the Fair Labor Standards Act to raise the minimum wage and guarantee overtime pay for all and a few more.

If corporate America cared about the working class and acted as leaders who cared about Americans, they would acknowledge Congress and President Clinton did them a favor with NAFTA back in 1993 and then support sharing some of the benefits with the working class.

By now, the end of 2017, Trump policies all demand and intend to destroy something - Obama Care, climate accords, Iran nuclear deals, TPP, NAFTA, – except taxing, spending and Federal Reserve policy keep going on as before. He hasn’t destroyed the economy … yet.