[CTC] Newby: Wisconsin needs a new NAFTA that works for farmers and workers

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Thanks, David!

http://host.madison.com/wsj/opinion/column/david-newby-wisconsin-needs-a-new-nafta-that-works-for/article_667807f6-15f6-513f-868a-042128fd2e1c.html <http://host.madison.com/wsj/opinion/column/david-newby-wisconsin-needs-a-new-nafta-that-works-for/article_667807f6-15f6-513f-868a-042128fd2e1c.html>
 
WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL
 
David Newby: Wisconsin needs a new NAFTA that works for farmers and workers
January 9, 2018 2 hrs ago
David Newby
 
The recent State Journal editorial “Don't let Trump ruin NAFTA for Wisconsin <http://host.madison.com/wsj/opinion/editorial/editorial-don-t-let-trump-ruin-nafta-for-wisconsin/article_1d4832ce-2e0f-586b-b430-6131eeca3532.html>” ignores both the damage that the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has done to our state as well as the best proposals for replacing it.
 
NAFTA and subsequent NAFTA-style trade agreements have made it easier for big corporations to shift jobs around the globe to wherever workers are exploited the most, are paid the least and environmental regulations are the weakest. Since NAFTA took effect, more than 79,000 specific Wisconsin jobs have been certified as lost to either direct outsourcing or displacement by imports — and that's just those jobs counted under one narrow government program. More jobs are lost every month.
 
Trade-related job loss is also putting major downward pressure on the wages and benefits of the jobs that are left. One study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research found that, even after accounting for the “benefit” of lower-priced imported consumer goods, this downward pressure on wages equaled the loss of more than $3,300 per year for most working Americans.
 
The State Journal editorial stated that “when allies lower tariffs and allow more competition across international boundaries, all sides get to produce and sell more of what they do best.” That’s what the line is from the Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, and Chamber of Commerce and neoliberal economics -- but it’s simply not true.
 
For example, the State Journal editorial is full of statistics about Wisconsin’s exports to Mexico and Canada. But not a word about imports! True, higher exports equal more jobs. But at the same time, increased imports equal the loss of existing and potential jobs.
 
So what really matters is our “balance of trade”: exports minus imports. If imports are greater than exports, we are losing jobs.
 
Take agriculture first. Since NAFTA took effect, more than 11,000 Wisconsin family farms have disappeared. As with job loss and wage stagnation, NAFTA isn’t the only cause — but it’s definitely an important one. Nationwide, the U.S. agricultural trade balance with Canada and Mexico swung from a $2.5 billion trade surplus the year before NAFTA took effect to a $6.4 billion deficit last year. Wisconsin’s state-specific agricultural trade deficit with Canada and Mexico in 2016 was $12.6 million.
 
We don’t have state-specific data for goods and services, but while the United States had a combined $9.9 billion trade deficit in goods and services with Canada and Mexico in 1993 (the year before NAFTA went into effect), we had a $134.3 billion deficit in 2015 (the last year for which we have services data). That's an inflation-adjusted trade deficit increase of $124.4 billion. That translates into a lot of jobs lost — not gained, as the editorial implies.
 
The ongoing harm NAFTA is causing our state’s economy cannot be allowed to continue. Replacing NAFTA, however, does not mean ending trade with Mexico and Canada — something that would not happen even if NAFTA was eliminated entirely, as the editorial implies.
 
What’s really needed, then, is a new trade agreement that ends NAFTA’s corporate outsourcing incentives (intensified by the recently-passed tax “reform” bill) and that adds strong labor and environmental standards with swift and certain enforcement. That would raise wages for working people at home and abroad and would allow Wisconsin producers to compete on a more level playing field.
 
Given the enormous corporate influence within the current administration, it’s going to take immense public demand to achieve that.
 
Newby is president of the Wisconsin Fair Trade Coalition and former president of the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO: davidrnewby at sbcglobal.net <mailto:davidrnewby at sbcglobal.net>.
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