Dear editor:
How trade deals have killed American jobs.
In 1993, when NAFTA was being negotiated with Canada and Mexico, we enjoyed a trade benefit of $2.6 billion. We were told by the U.S. International Trade Commission that this "free trade" deal would grow our trade benefit to $10 billion. In just 2015 alone, we had a trade deficit of $15 billion. I wonder if they actually thought so many corporations would move their manufacturing out of the U.S. when they originally made that statement.
Then look at China in 2000 with who we had a $113 billion deficit and were told that current negotiations with them would not increase our deficit to more than $120 billion, but by 2015, it had grown to over $300 billion, but then is it me or why would we want to negotiate anything in the first place that would increase, not decrease a trade deficit?
Trade deficits equate to lost jobs here in the U.S. Then there's the Korea trade deal of 2011 when again we're promised the good times and that our trade deficit at that time of $5.8 billion would be cut in half with that deal, yet it grew to $16 billion by 2015, just four years later. And they wonder why this new, much larger TPP is so wildly unpopular with the people? Yet, they want to push it through anyway? This is a corporate coup, not a trade deal and not only here in the U.S., but the entire planet.
They will own our government. We'll be blocked from passing any regulations or laws that a corporation deems harmful to their profits. Already we're being sued, which is insane. Both RNC and DNC need to take heed. This is why the people of both parties have rejected establishment candidates for outsiders like Trump and Bernie.
Judith Zitko
Hot Springs Village
Editorial on 05/23/2016