NAFTA vs. China = ‘Alien vs. Predator’
Posted by SCapozzola on February 29th, 2008
AAM regional coordinator Mickey Bolt has been on the ground in Ohio throughout the week, meeting with various Clinton and Obama staffers to discuss AAM’s “China Cheats” campaign. And, as both campaigns have been stepping up their pace with last-minute campaigning before Tuesday’s primary, Mickey summed up their shared rhetoric as “Who hates NAFTA more.”
Mickey has been talking with various Steelworkers and local businessmen, and they all recognize that NAFTA has cost Ohio many thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs. But NAFTA is a 14-year-old trade deal, and Mickey has been hearing from Ohioans that they are deeply frustrated with the Bush administration’s lack of effort in tackling illegal, subsidized competition from China. Cheap, subsidized Chinese steel, for example, has taken a toll on a number of Ohio steel mills and machine shops.
AAM has been making the point in its “China Cheats” campaign that the current presidential candidates need to state for the record what they’ll do with regard to China. Will they strongly enforce existing U.S. trade law, and take action against illegal currency manipulation? Or will they sit on their hands and allow China to continue running roughshod over U.S producers?
Getting answers from the presidential candidates was a key theme in AAM’s recent spate of Town Halls. Hosted by actor John Ratzenberger, the “Keep it Made in America” events spotlighted the urgency of saving U.S. manufacturing jobs.
With Ohio’s worried populism taking center stage in the political debate right now, something about AAM’s “bringing-it-to-the-people” Town Halls has begun to resonate in Washington. And nothing could better signal AAM’s bellwether status than yesterday’s article in The Politico, which featured interviews with both John Ratzenberger and AAM director Scott Paul.
The Town Halls, which Scott Paul described as a “cathartic experience” for many displaced workers and concerned voters, have helped to shape the primary season debate. The Politico noted: “During the second meeting, held in mid-October in Des Moines, Iowa, manufacturing issues with China and its trade agreements were discussed in depth. And Paul said the discussion translated into a dramatic increase in the level of activity surrounding the issue in the fall, culminating in a large presence at the National Public Radio debates in early December.”
AAM is taking the same approach state-wide in Ohio, trying to make sure that a convenient fixation on NAFTA does not preclude debate on the very real problem of China. With Beijing grabbing a $256 billion trade surplus from the U.S. in 2007, there’s more at stake than just one bad trade deal.
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March 4th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
AMERICAN SOVEREIGNTY AND THE NORTH AMERICAN UNION
The term ‘Free Trade’ is usually defined as the absence of tariffs, quotas, or other governmental barriers to international trade. There is no doubt that some recent free trade agreements have not been very good for the American worker. On the other hand, the agreements have been great for the large multinational corporations, particularly those that have moved their manufacturing plants from the United States to China, Mexico and other low-wage countries where they can hire people there for a few dollars a week. These corporations can now produce their products without worrying about the costs of meeting OSHA requirements, providing employee health care or pensions for its workers and then they can bring their products back into the USA to sell. These products oftentimes are not made to the same quality standards as when they were produced in America and as recents incidents involving Chineese imports have shown, these products can pose health hazards to Americans as well.
The supporters of many free trade agreements, particularly the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), have always promised increased exports, better jobs and better wages. Under many of these free trade agreements, however, just the opposite has occurred. Under NAFTA, for example, the U.S. trade deficit has soared and now averages $55-65 Billion dollars per month; the U.S. has lost over a million manufacturing jobs and real wages in both the U.S. and Mexico have fallen significantly. In short, NAFTA has not been a friend to the citizenry of either the United States or Mexico.
In 2005, a new mechanism was created to speed the further expansion of the NAFTA free trade agreement into a North American Union. It is called the Strategic and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP)’ The SPP is designed to facilitate the establishment of a North America Union through the “economic integration” of the US, Mexico and Canada. The most important feature of the SPP is that it does not require congressional ratification or the passage of any federal legislation by the congress of the United States. This design places the negotiation fully within the authority of the executive branch in the United States. How else would Mexican truckers be able to begin operating in the USA over the objections of Congress, American truckers and most of the American people?
The people and their elected representatives in congress no longer seem to have a voice when it comes to international trade. This is definitely a national sovereignty issue. International trade issues that affect 300+ million Americans should be made by the people’s representatives in Congress, not by a handful of government bureaucrats and corporate elites who use their government connections to bypass congress and ignore our Constitution, which expressly grants Congress the sole authority to regulate international trade.
The goal of these international trade elite is to create an integrated North American Union, complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy, and virtually borderless travel within the proposed Union. Like the European Union, a North American Union would represent another step toward the destruction of our national sovereignty. A free America, with limited, constitutional government, would just be a memory.
Not all free trade agreements are bad, but I believe that the United States of America must withdraw from any international agreements that infringe upon the freedom, sovereignty and independence of the American people.
By:
JOHN W. WALLACE
Candidate for Congress
New York’s 20th Congressional District
www.johnwallaceforcongress.com