Doug wrote:-
For the first six years after NAFTA took effect, U.S. employment rose (even in manufacturing for the first four years) and real wages rose, reversing 22 years of stagnation and/or decline. NAFTA has been a pretty bad deal for Mexico, but the effects on the U.S. (and Canada) are much harder to measure - good or bad. Anyone have evidence to the contrary? _________________
According to the Economic Policy Institute:- http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_archive_12102003
NAFTA-related job losses have piled up since 1993 Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed in 1993, the rise in the U.S. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico through 2002 caused the displacement of production that supported 879,280 U.S. jobs. NAFTA is a free trade and investment agreement that provided investors with a unique set of guarantees designed to stimulate foreign direct investment in Mexico and Canada. It has facilitated the movement of factories from the United States to Canada and Mexico. Most of these jobs were high-wage positions in manufacturing industries.
The office of the US Trade Representative takes a more ambiguous position:-
http://www.ustr.gov/naftareport/q-a5.htm
Nothing in NAFTA directly creates or destroys jobs. NAFTA is not a work program. It merely creates opportunities for trade, which generates economic growth, which generates jobs (in the case of the United States that also happens to mean better jobs). Consequently, no easy method exists to calculate jobs created or lost.
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