Bill to Repeal NAFTA Stalled in the House | Economy In Crisis
NAFTA has done way too much damage, and we need to repeal it. NAFTA has cost too many jobs, eroded our industrial base and decimated towns and communities, he said in a statement.
Enough is enough we need to focus on creating jobs right here in the United States not in foreign countries.
The bill currently has just 10 co-sponsors: Democratic Reps. Joe Baca, Lynn Woolsey and Bob Filner of California; Michael Capuano (MA), Peter DeFazio (OR), Marcy Kaptur (OH), Larry Kissell (NC) and Michael Michaud (ME).
Two Republicans are also backing the legislation: Texas
Ron Paul and North Carolinas Walter Jones.
The bill has be referred to the House Ways and Means Committee, but no action has been taken on it since that time.
Prior to the implementation of NAFTA, the
U.S. held a small trade surplus with Mexico of approximately $10 million. By 2007, that surplus had turned into an astounding $91 billion trade deficit. With Canada and Mexico combined, the U.S. has taken a $24 billion trade deficit prior to NAFTA and turned it into a $190 billion deficit - a 691 percent increase.
NAFTA was also supposed to usher in a new age of prosperity among the American people as thousands upon thousands of good-paying jobs were to be created through the increase in trade surplus that never quite came to fruition. As you can imagine, just the opposite happened. Each and every year
more and more jobs are outsourced to Mexico where labor is incredibly cheap and environmental concerns are a mere afterthought. The raft of jobs outsourced to Mexico forced
American workers into direct competition with one another and drove down wages for all.
Now Americans are forced to compete, not only with one another, but also with Mexican workers who are willing to work for much less than the average American. In the U.S., the average factory worker makes roughly $18 per hour while his Mexican counterpart earns just $3 per hour. This has encouraged a race to the bottom in which American companies are frequently relocating production facilities across the border
. Iconic American companies such as Coca Cola, Ford, RCA, General Motors, General Electric and Nokia have all opened up assembly plants in Mexico. In fact, GE employs 30,000 Mexicans in 35 factories in the country.
This race to the bottom has had a devastating effect on Americas manufacturing base.
Pre-NAFTA, the U.S. had 16.8 million people employed in the manufacturing field. By 2007, that number was down to just 13.9 million. That accounts for over 20 percent of Americas manufacturing jobs over the past 14 years. Those good-paying manufacturing jobs have been replaced by low-paying service sector jobs with little or no benefits.
The failure of NAFTA could not be evidenced more clearly than through the influx of illegal immigrants that have entered the U.S. since 1993. Illegal immigrants in the U.S. have increased to 12 million today from 3.9 million in 1993, accounting for an overall increase of over 300 percent.
