Politics

The NAFTA Follies

By Matt Cooper

The North American Free Trade Agreement was never as good as its boosters claimed or as bad as its detractors feared. Jobs were heading south before NAFTA and they're still heading south or east. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are right to raise questions about the agreement and even to want to visit renegotiating it. But if you game out their threats to abandon the accord, it seems pretty hollow. Given the shaky markets, weak dollar and other deals we're trying to close what would be the consequences of actually pulling out of a NAFTA treaty? The Canadians have already dangled the prospect of giving the Chinese first dibs on their oil fields. I'm sure Hugo Chavez would make hay of it. And for what? Would modifying the agreement really help preserve at lot of $25-an-hour jobs in the midwest? That's hard to imagine. So keep pandering, guys and gals. But let's be honest with people that there's a lot of jobs that are not coming back.

I note, as always, that my spouse works for Hillary Clinton

Full post as published by Portfolio.com: Capital on March 03, 2008 (boomark / email).