NAFTA at 20: One Million U.S. Jobs Lost, Higher Income Inequality

[pampango]

45. Great post.

And FDR was in a world of high tariffs and relatively low international trade due to them.

We aren't in a high tariff world anymore. And we're not only trading with other "first world" countries. As a result, we need different agreements.

Indeed by 1944 it was not a 'high tariff' world anymore. FDR had achieved that. He wanted to insure that such a world could not easily return.

The International Trade Organization that he proposed and Truman negotiated and signed had 23 signatory countries, including Mexico, China and India, as well as Canada, Australia and European countries. So FDR and Truman were not just concerned with trade with Europe and the other 'first world' countries.

And cost of living isn't radically different between Germany and Italy. Thus wages aren't radically different between Germany and Italy.

Living standards in Germany's neighbor, Poland ($13,000 per capita), are less than 1/3 of Germany's ($46,000) today. And Polish living standards were much lower in 2004 when it joined the EU.

So there is a substantial difference between living standards in neighboring countries in Europe; even more so when you compare Germany to the newest members like Bulgaria and Romania. And yet Germany maintains a strong middle class, healthy unions and high wages. Germans (except for some on the far-right) don't blame their economic problems on Poland joining the EU in 2004.

They operate with the "European mentality". Your neighbors' problems are not just their problems. They are your problems too. If not now then in the future. It is better to help your neighbor, even at some pain to yourself, than to ignore their troubles in the hope that you will be insulated from them by a wall or something.

The difference is the EU countries already had extremely similar labor, environmental and consumer protections before forming the EU.

At the beginning of the EU that was true for the most part. Countries that have joined the EU since then have had to conform their "similar labor, environmental and consumer protections" to EU standards before they are allowed to join.