NAFTA and its effects on U.S. manufacturing
Editor’s Note: The following essay was written by Thomas James Estes, the son of UAW Local 1949 member Joyce Matz. Thomas’ essay was selected as the winner of Local 1949’s 2004 Scholarship Award. He will graduate from Clinton Prairie High School in Franfort, Ind. on May 22. Thomas plans to attend Purdue University.
NAFTA is killing America’s manufacturing base. The U.S. trade deficit in 2003 was $489.3 billion. The U.S. imports 96 percent of all the clothing that is purchased. Seventy-five percent percent of all the toys in the U.S. are manufactured in other countries. Many believe that if there is to be another world war then we are going to be in big trouble. Our industrial base is being eroded away along with all of our jobs because of NAFTA and all the free trade that the U.S. is doing.
Our trade deficit is still growing today because of NAFTA. “Sure, NAFTA was really a wonderful deal for America,” said conservative Pat Buchanan. “Two years after we negotiated and signed it, our trade surplus is gone, we’ve got a $15 billion trade deficit with Mexico, 300,000 jobs have gone south, the Florida winter tomato industry is on its back, illegal immigration is soaring into this country, Mexico is the prime source of narcotics and drugs, and my good friend Sen. Dole negotiated a $50 billion bailout with Bill Clinton for the regime that brought this all about,” said Buchanan.
Much of our trade comes from Mexico. Sure this is helping their economy with all the business we are giving them, but it is hurting ours. Many of our major industrial factories have moved to Mexico and other countries, because of the cheaper labor that can be found there. As a result of this, we lose many jobs and our economy slows as our trade deficit goes up.
Remember that NAFTA is not a new invention. The banker/politician combine had quietly created policy years ago to allow the set up of the “Maquiladora region”as a pilot-program along the US-Mexican border. Soon over 2,200 U.S. factories moved into that 12-mile strip of Mexico from the late 1980s onward. Much had been learned from the early years of operations, and new procedures using low-skilled Mexican peasants had been perfected.
Industrial engineers learned new designs for assembly operations, and U.S. trade magazines now report these techniques ready for the expected thousands of new plants and expanded facilities in Mexico as soon as NAFTA becomes law and expands deep into the Mexican continent. Recent financial and real estate conventions held in Washington with capacity-crowds have also focused on the massive “get rich” Mexican opportunities soon to be created under NAFTA.
Many surveys show that American consumers are looking to purchase American-made goods instead of imported ones. Although this is becoming a much harder feat for consumers to achieve since so many products are being imported from different countries, such as, China, Japan, Canada, and Mexico.
Left out of the deal are the American people. Nobody can explain to them how it’s good for America to have millions of jobs move to Mexico? How can USA workers compete with frightened Mexican peasants making 58 cents or a dollar an hour? Government retraining programs have been exposed as multi-billion-dollar hoaxes because new high-tech jobs don’t exist. Unemployed U.S. workers with families to feed and mortgages to pay can’t find replacement jobs at the same pay scale, if at all. A permanent underclass is developing, and crime is on the increase.
All of these, along with the fact that the U.S. won’t be able to stay at the top of the industrial and economical market shows that we need to get rid of such trade agreements. We need to bring industry back to our hometowns where we can improve our local economies and the economy of the whole country. It’s nice that we have helped boost the economy of so many other countries, but we need to stop and take a look at our economy and industry so we can help improve them.
