<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div class=""><i class="">Thanks, Cynthia!</i></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><a href="http://bangordailynews.com/2018/02/05/opinion/contributors/tweaking-nafta-wont-cut-it-it-needs-a-major-rewrite/" class="">http://bangordailynews.com/2018/02/05/opinion/contributors/tweaking-nafta-wont-cut-it-it-needs-a-major-rewrite/</a><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><h1 class="article-h1" style="font-size: 5rem; margin: 0px 0px 2rem; line-height: 1.2; letter-spacing: -0.05rem; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">Tweaking NAFTA won’t cut it. It needs a major rewrite.</h1><div class=""><div class="headline"><h1 class="article-h1"></h1>
</div>By Cynthia Phinney, Special to the BDN •
<span id="published-time" class="">February 5, 2018 8:39 am</span>
<br class=""><span id="modified-time" class="">Updated: <time class="">February 5, 2018 10:41 am</time></span></div></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><p id="p-0" class="content-p">Many Americans are rightly anxious about
the outsourcing of jobs from their communities and the widening gap
between their earnings and expenses.</p><p id="p-1" class="content-p">Two issues at the top of the national agenda could make the situation considerably worse.</p><p id="p-2" class="content-p">Congress <a class="c2" href="http://bangordailynews.com/2017/12/27/politics/gop-tax-plan-gives-middle-class-initial-relief-but-that-could-fade-away/">just passed tax legislation</a> that failed to eliminate a tax break that lets companies <a class="c2" href="http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2010/nov/21/sheldon-whitehouse/whitehouse-says-companies-get-tax-break-moving-job/">deduct the expenses of relocating</a> to another country.</p><p id="p-3" class="content-p">The administration’s renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement must eliminate its <a class="c2" href="https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2017/01/30/new-terms-for-nafta-7/naftas-corporate-goodies-are-its-biggest-problem">incentives to outsource U.S. jobs</a>
and level the playing field by adding strong labor and environmental
provisions with swift and certain enforcement to raise wages for all
workers. Otherwise, companies will continue to move U.S. jobs to Mexico
to pay workers poverty wages and dump toxins while importing those
products back for sale here.</p><p id="p-4" class="content-p">NAFTA was negotiated behind closed doors
with 500 corporate advisers calling the shots, and the public and
Congress shut out. At its heart are special “investor-state” corporate
protections that <a class="c2" href="https://www.cato.org/publications/free-trade-bulletin/compromise-advance-trade-agenda-purge-negotiations-investor-state">make it less risky to outsource jobs</a> and that empower firms to attack domestic policies.</p><div class=""><p id="p-6" class="content-p">Washington, D.C., is swarming with lobbyists who want to preserve these corporate protections and use NAFTA renegotiations <a class="c2" href="https://www.iatp.org/nafta-renegotiation">to add new limits on food safety and labeling</a> and <a class="c2" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/ruth-lopert/nafta-negotiations-may-threaten-universal-access-to-affordable-d_a_23075221/">new monopoly rights for pharmaceutical firms</a> that would raise medicine prices.</p><p id="p-7" class="content-p">The stakes are high for working families in Maine.</p><p id="p-8" class="content-p">Maine has lost <a class="c2" href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/me_2-pager.pdf">more than 32,000</a>
of its manufacturing jobs — more than a third since NAFTA and other
similar trade deals went into effect. Twenty-five thousand of them have
been specifically certified as lost to international trade competition.
Overall, more than 930,000 American jobs already have been certified by
the U.S. government <a class="c2" href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/me_2-pager.pdf">as lost due to NAFTA</a>. Every week NAFTA helps corporations outsource more good-paying jobs to Canada and Mexico, including recently at <a class="c2" href="http://www.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2017/06/07/general-electric-waukesha-wisconsin-manufacturing-paul-ryan-cnnmoney.cnnmoney">General Electric</a>, <a class="c2" href="https://bangordailynews.com/2017/11/30/opinion/contributors/a-year-ago-trump-promised-carrier-workers-help-were-still-waiting/">Carrier</a> and <a class="c2" href="http://www.fox32chicago.com/news/local/nabisco-workers-furious-that-600-jobs-moving-to-mexico">Nabisco</a>.</p><p id="p-9" class="content-p">The effect of this manufacturing job loss hits us all in the form of lower wages across the economy.</p><div class=""><p id="p-10" class="content-p">According to the U.S. Department of
Labor, manufacturing workers who lose jobs to trade and find
re-employment are typically forced to take pay cuts. Two of every five
rehired in 2016 were <a class="c2" href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/nafta-factsheet-deficit-jobs_wages-march-2017_0.pdf">paid less in their new jobs</a>.</p><p id="p-11" class="content-p">Workers in the United States are not the
only ones getting a pay cut from NAFTA. According to the Organization of
Economic Cooperation and Development, <a class="c2" href="https://data.oecd.org/earnwage/average-wages.htm">average annual wages</a> in Mexico declined in real terms from 1993 to 2016, and its average manufacturing hourly wage is <a class="c2" href="https://qz.com/538056/the-country-china-outsources-to-when-chinese-labor-gets-too-expensive/">now lower than China’s</a>.</p><p id="p-12" class="content-p">This is opposite of what NAFTA boosters
promised 23 years ago, when the deal was debated by Congress. They
promised that NAFTA would improve the U.S. trade balance with Mexico and
Canada and <a class="c2" href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid%3D47070">create 200,000 jobs a year for five years</a>. Instead, we’ve lost almost 1 million jobs as a small surplus with Mexico and small deficit with Canada became <a class="c2" href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/nafta-factsheet-deficit-jobs_wages-march-2017_0.pdf">a massive </a> <a class="c2" href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/nafta-factsheet-deficit-jobs_wages-march-2017_0.pdf">$176 billion NAFTA goods trade deficit</a> in 2016.</p><p id="p-13" class="content-p">Meanwhile, corporations have collected <a class="c2" href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/nafta_factsheet_isds_january_2018.pdf">more than $392 million in taxpayer money</a> from NAFTA nations using the “investor-state” provisions.</p></div></div></div><div class=""><p id="p-15" class="content-p">As a candidate, Donald Trump pledged that
he would make NAFTA “a lot better” for working people. To accomplish
that, NAFTA needs a major rewrite.</p><p id="p-16" class="content-p">To start with, the American people must
be able to see what’s being negotiated in their names. Yet, so far, the
negotiations are happening under the same secretive,
corporate-influenced process that hatched the original NAFTA.</p><p id="p-17" class="content-p">This secrecy will make it difficult to get the right changes.</p><p id="p-18" class="content-p">That includes eliminating NAFTA’s investor <a class="c2" href="https://www.citizen.org/system/files/case_documents/press-release-public-citizen-ccsi-isds-professor-letter-oct-2017.pdf">outsourcing protections</a> and NAFTA’s <a class="c2" href="https://www.citizen.org/sites/default/files/procurement-from-ftas_0.pdf">limits on “buy American” policies</a>.</p><p id="p-19" class="content-p">Tough and strongly enforced labor, wage and environmental standards must be added, and the loopholes that allow <a class="c2" href="http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/naftas-uninvited-guest-why-chinas-path-to-u-s-manufacturing-runs-through-mexico/">goods with significant Chinese value to get NAFTA’s benefits</a> need to be closed.</p><p id="p-20" class="content-p">A good NAFTA replacement must ensure
imported food, goods and services meet U.S. consumer and environmental
standards and eliminate NAFTA’s existing terms that drive up the price
of lifesaving medicines by <a class="c2" href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/ruth-lopert/nafta-negotiations-may-threaten-universal-access-to-affordable-d_a_23075221/">giving pharmaceutical companies extended monopolies</a>.</p><p id="p-21" class="content-p">With this new approach to trade
agreements, we can harness the benefits of expanded trade while halting
job outsourcing, lowering of wages, and attacks on environmental and
health safeguards.</p><p id="p-22" class="content-p">Maine can clearly benefit from trade with
NAFTA countries. But a tweak to NAFTA won’t cut it. We want a NAFTA
replacement we can support, one that raises wages and creates good jobs
for people in Maine and across the nation.</p><p id="p-23" class="content-p"><em class="">Cynthia Phinney is the president of Maine Fair Trade Campaign.</em></p></div><div class=""><br class=""><div class="">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; " class=""><div class="">Arthur Stamoulis</div><div class="">Citizens Trade Campaign</div><div class="">(202) 494-8826</div><div class=""><br class=""></div></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline">
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