Do Republicans support policies that outsource American jobs?

The Democrat’s strategy could work. According to an NBC/WSJ poll recently released, 69 percent of Americans believe free trade agreements, like NAFTA, cost Americans jobs and 53 percent believe they have hurt the U.S. economy.

In an ABC News article titled: Dems Use ‘Outsourcing’ Ads to Attack Republicans on Jobs, they state;

“As November 2nd creeps closer, more and more Democratic are using these ads to take advantage of this anti-free-trade feeling. In just the past week, at least five Senate and 11 House candidates have come out with ads accusing GOP candidates of supporting tax breaks for multi-national corporations and free trade agreements –like NAFTA, which was signed by former Republican president George H. W. Bush and the China Trade Agreement, which was signed by former Democratic president Bill Clinton– that they say have been sending jobs abroad.”

This intentional distortion of information by not only political parties but also by main stream news sources raises the question of how far will a group go to keep or gain power? Who should the public elect? And why the dissemination of misleading information?

Lets look at NAFTA and what it means for Americans and job creation.

In Executive Memorandum #366 published by The Heritage Foundation Published on September 27, 1993 by Douglas Seay, we read:

“After years of negotiation and repeated postponements, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been completed and now awaits congressional consideration. As if on cue, a torrent of opposition has erupted.

The most surprising aspect about the NAFTA debate is the criticism by some conservatives. Opposition to the NAFTA is understandable on the part of protectionists, champions of increased government regulation, and those who unashamedly seek to advance their own fortunes at the expense of the national interest. But for conservatives, there should be little dissension. All the existing empirical data regarding U.S. trade with Mexico, as well as basic economic theory stretching back over 200 years to Adam Smith, shows that the NAFTA is good for the U.S. This is why Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Milton Friedman, to name only some of the most prominent conservatives, strongly support the agreement, even with its admitted flaws. As Thatcher told a U.S. audience recently, America has “nothing to fear” from the NAFTA.”

So why the fear now if under then Democratic President Bill Clinton NAFTA was so rosey?

• Grant the signatories Most Favored Nation status.
• Eliminate barriers to trade and facilitate the cross-border movement of goods and services.
• Promote conditions of fair competition.
• Increase investment opportunities.
• Provide protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights.
• Create procedures for the resolution of trade disputes.
• Establish a framework for further trilateral, regional and multilateral cooperation to expand NAFTA’s benefits.

(Source: NAFTA Secretariat, “NAFTA FAQ”)

Has NAFTA Fulfilled Its Purpose?:

According to John Engler.

”

A critical fact overlooked by politicians who blame lost jobs on NAFTA is that during those three years Ohio manufacturers actually sold more goods to Canada and Mexico — our NAFTA partners — than it took in. If Ohio exported more to these countries than it imported — shrinking the trade deficit — how can these politicians argue this agreement cost us jobs?

In fact, while one in five manufacturing jobs in Ohio depends on making products that are sold overseas, exports to NAFTA countries increased more than 31 percent in the past five years.

What some candidates are not admitting to Ohioans is that the decline in manufacturing jobs was largely the result of the state’s early-decade recession, when the nation’s entire economy slowed. An even greater factor is increased productivity: Manufacturers can simply make more products today with fewer people. We could just as easily blame faster microprocessors, automated production lines and other technological advances for the decline in manufacturing jobs. Yet no candidate is demanding a timeout from computer chips.

Enacting the anti-trade policies expressed in recent campaign rhetoric equals more than just a timeout; it means surrendering the playing field to our competitors, costing us jobs.”

Most recently ther has been a paper written by Jackie Lopez, a Junior at Duke university majoring in Public Policy and minoring in Economics. It’s title: The Campaign Against NAFTA: An Irrational Attack on Free Trade

Jackie quotes President Clinton, “ This debate about NAFTA is a debate about whether we will embrace change and create the jobs of tomorrow, or try to resist those changes, hoping we can preserve the economic structure of yesterday” – President Bill Clinton

In Ms Lopez’s abstract she writes. “Models and basic rationality show NAFTA offered America enormous benefits that only free trade can bring.”

It is pointed out in her analysis that when you introduce competition productivity actually goes up. With increased efficiency and output profit and wages can increase.

Further in her findings she states. “Trade policy alone does not determine the net number of jobs. The total net jobs in the economy depends on much bigger factors such as the business cycle, number of workers and labor market policies. The most important effect of trade remains the creation of more productive employment that in turn raises the standard of living and prosperity of workers.

Acording to a recent LimaOhio.com article titled  Labor leaders say factories still feel NAFTA’s sting, Joe Vardon reports, “More than 15 years after the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect under President Bill Clinton, labor leaders and politicians are still bemoaning the negative effects they said it’s had on manufacturing.”

..nearing two years into his presidency, President Obama has yet to rewrite the trade agreements he campaigned against as being harmful to American manufacturers and that he promised to overhaul. “It took us 30 years to get into this mess,” said Tim Burga, chief of staff for the Ohio AFL-CIO. “This is some hard stuff to reverse all of a sudden.”

So is it about NAFTA or maintaining power ? NAFTA has not been good for any of the nations represented by it despite the economic problems. Blame will not fix job losses so who will cooperate to fix this mess?

Choose wisely this November 2nd.