The North American Free Trade Agreement has been a boondoggle for the American worker since it was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. Both political parties are neck deep in this boondoggle. Look at the Bush record: $4 trillion in trade deficits, $2.5 trillion in manufactures alone. One in every six manufacturing jobs, 3 million, gone. America borrows $2 billion a day to pay for foreign goods. The results have seen a collapse of the dollar, oil soaring to $110 a barrel and gas heading toward $4 a gallon. Each of these have added to the troubling aspect of the devalued dollar.

NAFTA has produce jobs, however the jobs that are produced are not quality jobs. Gone are the days of an American industrial sector. Jobs that produce good wages, healthcare and a 401K or pension have been shipped out of the nation. We as a nation out source jobs because of labor cost. Labor cost are always cheaper in Mexico, Asia and, of course, China. How many times have we seen “made in China” on an item. We as a nation have moved into speciality employment such as the medical fields or telecommunications. Service work such as hospitality, restaurant work, delivery or transportation has expanded. We as a nation have given away our best manual labor jobs and replaced those high paying, high benefits jobs with low paying and no benefits jobs. When an American company starts a business and is successful in employing American workers, wages go up. However, after the wages reach a livable amount, these jobs are shipped out of the country. The worker looks for work, and another company starts and the same thing happens. This cycle has stopped the working citizens from realizing good wages and benefits, something that a generation ago was automatic. NAFTA has not created wealth in America, it has created an expanded welfare state.

Another troubling aspect of NAFTA has been the open United States borders that provide the American workers with a competitor from south of the border. The American workers rival has been successful in driving wages down and whatever benefit we had away. Under the guise that these people, from south of the border, just want to better themselves, the United States Government, and that includes both parties, has allowed an unjust labor war between American workers and foreign nationals. This unfair competition pits America’s least educated against a worker that should not even be in the country. Thus driving manual labor wages to the floor. An American worker can not raise a family, pay for a home, pay for transportation and feed his family at today’s wages.

American jobs can no longer be outsourced without effecting American wages negatively. If the American worker is in competition with workers in developing nations, we can expect wages to decrease or more jobs to exit the United States. American wages are effectively outsourced just like the wages that go to Mexico. The money sent home by illegals working abroad , known as remittances, is the country’s second greatest source of foreign income, after oil exports. Figures provided by Mexico’s central bank states remittances grew to $23.9 billion. This $23.9 billion in wages would have a dramatic positive effect on the lives of American citizens and American owned businesses. This money spent in an American economy would have kept jobs and wages growing.

With the job market getting more difficult by the day, it is this writer opinion that our country implement President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1954 solution. Eisenhower’s solution put American citizens to work by removing illegal cheap labor in harsh economic times. In 1954 the U.S. government deported more than 130,000 Mexican nationals in the space of almost a year, although local INS officials claimed that an additional 1 million to 1.2 million had fled to Mexico. At this time, with this economy and a devalued dollar, this would make a great difference in American citizens lives. I would ask both Democrats and Republicans to demand that their Representatives in Washington complete the border wall and protect American citizens jobs. We as a nation have sent to many good jobs away, and now we fight for our financial survival in our own nation.

*http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0706/p09s01-coop.html

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/briefingpapers_bp147

ww.citizen.org/documents/NAFTA_10_jobs.pdf

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PatrickJBuchanan/2008/03/11/to_die_for_nafta?page=2

Mike Moseley

Staunton