General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: NAFTA passed on Nov. 20, 1993, on the promise of jobs. Oddly enough . . . [View all]OrwellwasRight
(5,209 posts)"Trade agreements are trade offs, you give to receive, you don't get it all and give nothing which seems, for some, a hard concept to accept."
Yes, trade-offs should involve the US lowering sugar tariffs and eliminating sugar quotas in exchange for country X eliminating its tariffs on pork and beef -- two popular US exports. They DO NOT need to involve trading away your right not to compensate corporations for regulations they don't like or agreeing to refrain from engaging in certain kinds of financial regulations. Those are not rules that involve tradeoffs between countries. Those are tradeoffs that hurt those helped by regulations (average people) and benefit those who don't like regulations (corporations). This is not a required tradeoff, and yet the US keeps making it.
"Without NAFTA, the American public would be paying far, far more for their imported oil, gas, water, electricity, automobiles, etc. "
Again, false. We could have dropped tariffs with Mexico and Canada unilaterally or engaged in a tariff-only agreement. We did not need to agree to the harmful rules of NAFTA to get "cheap gas," which, by the way, is arguably a bad thing since it has induced us to overuse it.
"Corporations used to be national, no longer, they are multinationals, with NO allegiance to any country, they will go where the costs are lower, the profits higher."
Exactly, which is why the smart trade policy would be for governments to get together to regulate the behavior of corporations. To force them to behave responsibly toward the environment and their employees instead of giving them carte blanche to invest anywhere without any responsibilities and the freedom to challenge any policy they don't like.
"Isolationism will not change that . . ."
Straw man. Who is advocating isolationism? Why do you interpret calls to do trade in a progressive way "isolationism"? To undermine the other side? To get readers to write off critics? To paint yourself as the smart one and critics as neanderthals? It won't work. Demanding rules that work for people and not just kowtowing to corporate greed isn't isolationism. It's the exact opposite. It's global solidarity.