Mexican farmers march against U.S. imports under NAFTA. (AP)
NAFTA Turns 10 Story aired: Thursday, January 01, 2004
In the 1992 presidential campaign, Ross Perot famously predicted that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) would create "a giant sucking sound of jobs being pulled out of this country."
NAFTA eased tariffs on goods that move between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico. But exactly how many jobs the U.S. may have lost because of NAFTA is still up for debate.
And NAFTA, which turns ten today, is back as a hot-button issue in this year's presidential campaign. Recently Congressman Richard Gephardt told reporters that NAFTA has sparked a "race to the bottom."
"In Mexico," Gephardt said, "manufacturing wages are 35 percent less than before NAFTA. 98 percent of what they make comes here. So we're not helping them, we're not helping ourselves. We are continuing to lose jobs to them. And they don't have any money to buy anything."
Not all the presidential candidates agree. But in ten years of NAFTA, trade between Canada, Mexico and the U.S. has boomed. And so has the U.S. trade deficit.
Economists Robert Scott from the Economic Policy Institute, and Gary Hufbauer, a Senior Fellow at the Institute for International Economics talked to Here and Now about NAFTA.
Guests:
Economists Robert Scott from the Economic Policy Institute, and Gary Hufbauer, a Senior Fellow at the Institute for International Economics
