by Gary S. Meyers and L. Steven Platt

A “Fair Trade” bill is currently pending in Congress to make changes to this country’s open-ended free trade policy most visibly exemplified by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

This agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico took effect on January 1, 1994, with the “promise” of creating hundreds of thousands of new “high-wage” U.S. jobs and raising the living standards in Mexico and Canada. In 2005, Congress voted to extend NAFTA to five Central American countries. The last trade restrictions were eliminated on January 1, 2008.

NAFTAs 900-page one-size-fits-all rules requires limits on safety and inspection of meat sold in our supermarkets and impacts many other U.S. jobs, products and services.

Since NAFTA was passed, the United States has lost millions of jobs; many went to Mexico at first and then to the Pacific Rim. The opening of Mexico’s and Canada’s borders mostly have helped corporate profits, but have not led to new jobs for American workers as the tax laws provide companies with incentives to ship jobs overseas.

NAFTA was supposed to create more jobs in Mexico and stop illegal immigration. The opposite has happened. Since American manufacturers have been able to sell their products in Mexico, thousands of Mexican workers have been displaced resulting in more illegal immigration to work in the livestock slaughtering industry, in other menial agricultural, or janitorial jobs. They work until they are injured or become sick from the bacteria they are exposed to and then they are sent back to Mexico and are again unemployed.

The high unemployment level in Mexico has fueled drug cartel activity to the extent that some U.S. law enforcement officials believe parts of Mexico are actively engaged in a civil war with the drug lords. People are crossing the U.S. border at an increasing rate and we have seen the response in border states like Arizona.

The new Fair Trade bill would not stop free trade but it would impose certain restrictions. For one thing, it would eliminate tax incentives to companies that ship jobs overseas. For another, it would penalize countries like China that deliberately undervalues their currency, or like Japan, dump steel in the U.S. until they kill our entire industry.

Does this make sense? For years after the depression, the United States had a modified free trade system which imposed tariffs on countries that cheated, like Japan and China. Work was at an all time high in the 1950s and workers were able to earn a living wage. Now, for example, people who work as meat cutters, generally are illegal aliens working for below minimum wage without safety and protection from injury and illness. Outbreaks of salmonella from industrial farming are at an all time high. Are we really better off this way? What do you think?