If the President and the Party pledged to end NAFTA would we win in the fall going away?

[DefenseLawyer]

I think so. I mean I know they won't, but I think it would be a game changer if they did. Any thoughts?

[Donnachaidh]

1. they'd have to end it BEFORE the election to really get the votes

Folks are tired of being promised actions that never happen.

[DefenseLawyer]

3. Well okay, if they ended it and ran on that, same question.

[Donnachaidh]

4. if they truly ended Nafta, they'd get my vote

Next up would be placing high tariffs on companies that have taken all their manufacturing jobs out of the country - like Hershey's Chocolates.

[DefenseLawyer]

7. I'm sure they'd get a lot of our votes

That's not really the question. I'm talking about winning in the fall not swaying DU. I think it would bring in lots of middle of the roaders and force Republicans to campaign against American jobs with some trickle down, free trade mantra that doesn't fly with average people.

[Oregone]

2. Obama already promised to renegotiate it with the threat of leaving it as leverage

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080227/dems_nafta_080227/20080227/

[IndianaGreen]

5. Democrats are not even interested in repealing Taft-Hartley

so why would they repeal the corporatist bonanza that NAFTA turned out to be, or even pass EFCA?

Nothing like taking campaign money and assets from AFL-CIO while screwing the rank-and-file.

[WinkyDink]

6. Just a pledge? Not a chance at being credible.

[Motown_Johnny]

8. the amount of corporate money spent to beat them would go through the roof

I have always been against NAFTA, I was a Richard Gephardt guy back in the day just because of this issue.


I would love to reform all our trade agreements but there will be repercussions and everyone in office knows it.

[EFerrari]

9. They never will because that's too much $$$ for the ruling class.

It would be the single biggest step they could take to remedy the influx of undocumented workers.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

30. So dropping an atomic bomb on the Mexican economy with REDUCE illegal immigration?

End NAFTA and the Maquiladora zone will pour over the border looking for work,

[southerncrone]

10. It would garner lots of votes...but a strong to-the-point ad campaign must accompany it.

Many Americans don't even know what NAFTA is, let alone realize it is behind the massive loss of good jobs in our country. Those under 40 probably haven't even heard of it.

Since Bill was instrumental in its passage (never understood WHY he would stay the course w/THAT Bush I baby), I find it doubtful the current administration would go down this path; although it DEFINITELY needs to be repealed.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. Wouldn't that send the economy into a downward spiral and cause massive unemployment?

I don't think that would garner many votes, no.

[Elwood P Dowd]

24. You have no freaking clue what you're talking about.

NAFTA has cost us almost 2 million jobs and over a trillion dollars in added current account deficits. Every single promise about NAFTA has failed to materialize. NAFTA and all the other fake free trade deals actually helped CREATE much of the DOWNWARD SPIRAL and MASSIVE UNEMPLOYMENT that we are experiencing today. Absolutely unbelievable that a DU member could be so lost in space about our trade problems.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

31. And you think ending NAFTA would bring them back?

And all without sparking a trade war?

[olegramps]

43. Trade War?

That is the bull shit propaganda that the Republicans fed to the ignorant workers along with unions are your enemy and we will take good care of you. When a company out-sources jobs along with the machinery their products should be highly tariffed to the point of putting them out of business. Today's workers may be better educated than their grandparents, but that doesn't mean that they are smarter.

[karynnj]

42. There are real questions as to what the job losses would have been without it

At the point NAFTA was enacted, there already had been job losses due to outsourcing and they were going to continue. It was (and is) legal and was driven by the lower costs for labor elsewhere. NAFTA ended up removing some barriers to imports. There was even some talk in 1993, that trade treaties could establish a floor in terms of wages and environmental practices in the cheaper countries.

This obviously did not happen with NAFTA. In addition, to the costs to American labor, NAFTA was bad for Mexican workers. Given the reality of a global economy for labor, I'm not sure that the jobs you speak of will return. The cheapest thing for most companies would likely still be to keep the jobs in the foreign countries. This is why fixing the treaty might be better than eliminating it.

[tbyg52]

12. No, because we know how much a "pledge" from our "fierce advocate" means. nt

[kenny blankenship]

13. Even if you were a pollster and you could show them they'd win with 90% of the vote

I truly believe they would have an aneurysm and stroke out with blood streaming from every orifice before words like "NAFTA must end" could escape their lips.

I think they would literally prefer the corporate campaign cash, with a strong chance of defeat, to getting a guaranteed 90% of the vote.

[Imajika]

14. You'd have to explain to most Americans what NAFTA is...

...so no.

It is not possible for Democrats to provide a complete education on what NAFTA is, and then explain why they oppose, between now and the elections.

Most Americans simply don't know what it is, in fact, most American's probably didn't know what it was back when it passed.

[DefenseLawyer]

17. Where the heck do you live?

I don't think you could find a factory worker in the country that doesn't know what NAFTA is. Working class people definitely know what it is and what it has done.

[Edweird]

15. Pledged? No way. They'll make some weasel worded statement

and as soon as the election is over they'll deny that it meant what they implied. Remember the Public Option?

[DefenseLawyer]

16. People are getting hung up on the word pledge

I used that word because I don't think it is realistic that they could repeal it this year. But they could at least talk about it. And not just the progressives that already do. I mean the President and the leadership. Forcefully denounce it. I mean making it a major, identifiable issue for the party. "The Democratic Party is against NAFTA". That by default would make Republicans have to defend it. At the very least it would create a further rift in the republican fabric, as your average teabagger is no fan of nafta either. I really think more than healthcare or anything else, being unequivocally for a repeal of NAFTA would strike a major chord with a lot of voters.

[William Z. Foster]

18. yes

That is but a number of things, that were the Democrats to fight for them, would put them in power solidly for a generation or more. Yet they will not. That tells us that there is something much more important to them than winning elections. Yet they will tell us that they do not fight for us because "it isn't practical" to do so, and that if they did they would lose elections. Many people right here repeat that obviously absurd contention.

[RB TexLa]

19. The country isn't as isolationist as you think.

[DefenseLawyer]

21. Thanks, I sometimes forget how anti-labor some of my fellow "Democrats" are

That's right, NAFTA is all about free trade. :crazy:

[Elwood P Dowd]

25. NAFTA is a scam masquerading as free trade.

RB always supports the corporate investor crowd on free trade regardless of how many US workers get canned.

[spoony]

34. Sad, isn't it?

I'm afraid if they don't get it by now, they never will.

[readmoreoften]

20. He already "pledged" against it while attacking Clinton's pro-NAFTA stance. Day after the primaries

he announced he changed his mind about NAFTA. That's what the primaries was: a corporate hack vs a lying corporate hack. His promise isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

[Stinky The Clown]

22. I don't think enough people know what NAFTA is for it to matter very much

That's a commentary on our citizenry, not your idea.

[DefenseLawyer]

23. You must not spend much time among working people.

Every factory worker and every truck driver in America knows what NAFTA is. Everyone in every town in the rust belt that has seen the plant close and move to Mexico knows exactly what NAFTA is.

[Johonny]

26. I think the president should work on what he campaigned on

fair trade instead of free trade. Trade treaties in which both sides have the same ecological and social standards and both markets have equal ability to sell products. He did run on that and I haven't seen much yet get through congress...

[JoeyT]

27. I think it would be the most amusing election ever.

I think he'd swing a hell of a lot of Republican votes if he pulled that off just before the election. Especially among the non-union blue collar crowd that normally wouldn't even consider voting for a Dem. I'd love to see the South go blue in a presidential election.

Virtually ALL blue collar workers know what NAFTA and free trade are.
It wouldn't be hard to explain it to the few that don't.
"Remember when all the jobs that didn't require a degree left the country? This is what caused it. Time to bring the jobs back."

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

28. That will sure teach them for sending jobs to India and China!

Oh wait... no it won't.

Oh well, the Canadians and Mexicans will be more than happy to sell their oil to China instead.

[SidDithers]

37. +1...nt

Sid

[pampango]

38. And the EU has an FTA with Mexico and is negotiating one with Canada. They'll be happy to sell oil

to Europe as well.

[havocmom]

29. too little this late

[Luminous Animal]

32. "New leadership will end the war"

Thus said Richard Nixon.

[PufPuf23]

33. If they pledged to end NAFTA it would be replaced with something worse.

I am tired and irritated tonight.

Some would still cheer.

I have no clue to the problem except a broken or false system.

[B Calm]

35. Damn right they would win! It's a fucking republican bill that needs to go!

[pampango]

36. Maybe. Americans love scapegoats-particularly foreign ones. While Canada and the EU are negotiating

a new FTA, we're talking about canceling ours with our progressive neighbor and certainly not negotiating one with our progressive ally across the ocean.

Why is it that "free trade" is a much larger part of the economies of much more progressive countries than the US and yet they are, indeed, much more progressive? Why is it that these countries choose "free trade" so much when they also choose effective national health care, progressive taxation, strong social safety nets, strong unions, and more effective regulation of corporations and the markets? Could it be that they see trade with the rest of the world as a "progressive" policy (just as FDR and Truman did)?

[DefenseLawyer]

39. Crazy corporate spin

NAFTA is not about trade at all really. It's about efficiently shifting labor costs for multinational corporations. When Whirlpool closes a plant in Evansville, Indiana and opens a plant in Mexico and pays the workers a fraction of what they paid before, we aren't suddenly "trading" with Mexico. No one is trading anything; the same multinational is selling the same washers to the same consumers. Whirlpool is just shedding higher labor costs and shifting it to a place where the workers can be more easily exploited.

[pampango]

41. The point is that "free trade" (and open borders) not only works in Europe, progressives there

support it, while the far-right parties (like the BNP) fight against it. The latter want to disband the EU so that each country can reestablish tariffs and immigration controls on other Europeans. You would be hard pressed to find Europeans (except for these "Tea Party" wannabes in each country) who want to go back to the days of borders controls and tariffs against each other.

European progressives share with FDR and Truman the belief that international trade is a good thing, not an evil idea that needs to be fought with walls and tariffs. But I suppose you could contend that those Europeans don't know anything about running real progressive societies. They should listen more to American progressives. We could teach them a thing or two about the beauty of border walls and tariffs.

[Romulox]

48. People who oppose NAFTA = BNP. It's as simple as that. nt

[DefenseLawyer]

52. You do understand what the term "multinational" means, right?

NAFTA at its heart has nothing to do with trade between countries. Multinational corporations have no borders. Trade between countries that takes advantage of efficiencies in resources or technology is good, but comparing trade in Europe, where labor costs are relatively static, to a multinational corporation moving a plant from the U.S. to Mexico is not a reasonable comparison. NAFTA's most obvious "benefit" to multinational corporations is simply to allow the American corporations to switch production to Mexico where workers can more easily be exploited. The result is lost jobs, lower wages across the board and more profits. It doesn't have a goddamn thing to do with "international trade" when the only thing being traded is reasonable pay to workers for ridiculously low pay for workers. You obviously prefer profits for the few to fair wages for the many. Don't worry, you are not alone.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

40. the answer isn't pretty or politically correct

When we as a nation are nostalgic about the prosperity of the 1950's and 60's we sort of ridiculous about it. It didn't come from unions or great benevolent blue chip corporations and it certainly wasn't the will of god. It came from the total obliteration of the rest of the industrialized world with the exception of Australia, Canada and South Africa which didn't amount to a whole lot.

So between the economic recovery of European and Asian industrial powers and the emergence of newly industrialized states the idea that this was some sort of sustainable economic order was ridiculous and come the 1970's it was obvious.

By the 1960's the Japanese and Europeans had recognized that trying to retain low-value manufacturing was both foolish and not terribly desirable shifting their focus to automobiles, Aerospace and technology.

And in the 1980's after having been smacked up the head by the 1970's America shifted its focus to parasitic ponzi schemes, "service industries" along with a wholly unproductive a healthcare and insurance super-bureaucracy while the deep south decided to hang on to manufacturing by way of rolling back the clock to the dawn of the industrial revolution. All the while unchecked consolidation created vast industries of zombie corporations that could barely function let alone compete with aggressive competitors.

We stood dead still in a changing world and here we are flailing stupidly with calls to trade wars that wouldn't be worth winning and a naive belief that somehow we will restore prosperity to the heartland by regaining the plastic cutlery industry from the Chinese.

[olegramps]

44. A Corporate Capitalist speaks.

There is a hell of lot more demand for sewing machines, toaster, refregerators, TVs, etc., etc., etc., than SSTs.

[Romulox]

46. Thank you for this comment! nt

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

49. And there is more money to be made building other things

Do we make an attempt to join the late 20th century or do we fight to get the toaster and sewing machine industry back?

The US does just fine as a high value manufacturer and exporter, the question is why have some parts of the country failed at it either for belligerence or lack of ability.

[spoony]

50. You never fail to disappoint.

Since they're clearly not economic, what liberal values DO you have?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

51. so which statements specifically do you disagree with?

Do you disagree that the US benefited tremendously from virtually the entire industrialized world being in ruins?
Do you disagree that the Europeans and Japanese went on a crash course to move away from low-value manufacturing?
Do you disagree that US response to this economic change was deregulation and an emphasis on employment in the service industry?
Do you disagree that massive corporate consolidation created giant corporations that just don't work?

[Romulox]

47. Your spiel becomes increasingly shrill. Why so mum on Greece, and BRITISH Petroleum's problems,

you fierce advocate for the EU and multinational corporation (when all is going well, that is!) you.

I'm also waiting for your series of articles on domestic poverty--any planned yet? :shrug: :hi:

[Romulox]

45. Did you miss Obama's earlier broken pledge regarding NAFTA? "Fool me...we can't get fooled again."