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Interesting article concerning the negative side o
NAFTA - it's not good news! Check out *this*
interesting perspective on the North American
Fraud and Theft Agreement, reprinted with
permission from the "For The People NEWS
REPORTER" of April 12th, 1993.
"FOLLOW THE MONEY: UNDERSTANDING NAFTA"
By PAT CHOATE
Washington Correspondent
April 9, 1993
WASHINGTON-Recall Deep Throat's advice on how to unravel
Watergate: "Follow the money." It's not a bad way to
understand the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
Mexico has millions of well-motivated and unemployed
workers who will be delighted to work for $1 per hour or
less. The United States has thousands of employers who will
be delighted to ditch their American workers, move to
Mexico and hire Mexicans. Dozens of powerful Washington
influence peddlers will be delighted - for a high fee, of
course to lobby Congress for passage of NAFTA legislation.
Mexico wins big-time with NAFTA. The deal gives
companies from any other country operating in Mexico
virtually unrestricted access to the rich American market.
The combination of cheap labor, compliant regulators and
low corporation taxes will allow companies from Asia and
Europe to use Mexico as a low-cost platform from which
they can devastate their U.S. competitors.
For the U.S.-based transnationals, the threat of
moving to Mexico will be a potent weapon to be used against
unions and workers. What is more important, thousands of
existing American-based factories will join the 2,200 other
U.S. owned companies now operating out of Mexico.
NAFTA is also a winner for U.S. banks. They can
establish operations in Mexico, take equity positions in
deals (something outlawed inside the United States) and
provide lucrative investment bank services for their
clients there. Less visibly, the shift of production from
America to Mexico will allow the Mexicans to repay the
billions of dollars of debt and interest owed to U.S.
financial interests.
NAFTA will be a big winner for Washington lobbyists.
In 1993, the Mexican Government and Mexican corporations
will spend an estimated $50 million for lobbyists and
publicists whose job is to get the agreement enacted into
law.
The NAFTA losers will be American workers and the
communities where they live. Several independent studies
verify this unpleasant reality.
The most optimistic of these reports was released
in 1992 by the Department of Labor, the U.S. Council of
the Mexico - U.S. Business Committee, and the
international Trade Commission. They conclude
that the agreement will cause few or nojob losses, but
few job gains. Yet, these conclusions are based on the
assumption that the U.S. will have fuII employment in the
1990s and every displaced American worker will have a
replacementjob. To say the least, this stretches
credibility.
By contrast, the Washington-based Economic Policy
Institute projects that an unrestricted free trade pact
with Mexico would cost 550,000 U.S.jobs over the next
five years. The Economic Strategy Institute, another
leading Washington think tank, projects that more than
one million American jobs could be lost in the 1990s
under an unrestricted agreement.
Are job losses of this magnitude actually possible?
They are. U.S. corporations have already built more than
2,200 factories in the thin strip of land along the
U.S.-Mexico border that is part of Mexico's Maquiladora
program. They employ almost 800,000 Mexican workers. If
this treaty is ratified by Congress, U.S. corporations
will have an even better deal in Mexico and the entire
nation in which to locate. They will move South.
The negative effects will fall disproportionately
on special industries, workers and locales.Textiles and
apparel workers are particularly vulnernble. At least one
million apparel and textile workers face the loss of their
job over the next decade if NAFTA takes effect. Roughly 90
percent of this employment is concentrated in eight states
and more than 80 per-cent of the workers are women and
minorities.
The State of Texas, which is supposedly a prime
beneficiary of this agreement, will be particularly hard
hit. The Texas Department of Commerce, which did a
detailed analysis of the employment effects of the
agreement, reported in October, 1991, that those
Texas industries that will "lose" under this agreement
employ one-third more workers in the state than the
projected "winners ".
The Texas losers will include fresh fruits and
vegetables, livestock, distribution services,
transportation equipment, fabricated metals, lumber
and paper, primary metals, leather and leather products,
apparels and textiles, wholesale and retail trade,
and banking. These are industries that employ
disproportionately high numbers of semi-skilled
workers, women and minorities.
American cities will also suffer under this pact.
Even without this agreement, the nation's twenty
largest metropolitan areas lost more than 1.2 million
manufacturing jobs between 1969-89. Many of the
remaining jobs, such as the 60,000 in New York's
apparel industry, pay $6.50 perhour. These are not
great jobs, but for many Americans these are the only
jobs, jobs with dignity that hold together the working
poor. And if this treaty is ratified, these jobs will
disappear.
The effect of job losses on rural areas will be
less visible, but even more destructive. In many
communities, only one or two companies provide most of
the jobs. If these companies are forced out of business
or move, the entire community suffers.
And recovery comes slowly, if at all. Most of the
New England textile workers who were displaced when
their companies went South never found a comparable
replacement job. Millions of other workers across
America now face exactly the same prospect.
If NAFTA becomes law, the question that these
workers will face is this: Where will I find a job
if my company moves to Mexico?
For most people, there is no answer for there will
be no job.
[Pat Choate is the author of "Agents of lnfluence" and
Director of the Washington-based Manufacturing Policy
Project]
Cheers!
John W.
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