Needing NAFTA
Trade with our neighbors north and south supports nearly 14 million U.S. jobs.
We all know about the Great Trump Wall and how it will keep murderers, rapists and disease-bearing illegal immigrants from rampaging out of Mexico and into the United States. Even though illegal immigration from Mexico is at its lowest since the 1970s, the Wall remains a Donald Trump staple much beloved by the candidate’s devoted followers.
We also know the corollary to Trump’s Wall call: his vow to eviscerate “the worst economic development deal ever signed in the history of our country.” That would be the North American Free Trade Agreement, ratified by Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993.
All but the most ardent immigration restrictionists know that Trump’s Wall will never be built. But NAFTA, designed to ease trade among Mexico, Canada and the United States, could be a different story. Free-trade skeptics in both parties are raising questions about various trade deals, including NAFTA, as well as the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement that President Barack Obama supports and his potential Democratic successor, Hillary Clinton, does not (although she used to).
Trump said in Detroit last week that, absent a better deal, the U.S. should withdraw from NAFTA. He has said he wants to change “many, many things” about the trade agreement but hasn’t specified what.
Fortunately, Republican officeholders, particularly those from Texas, understand the folly of wrecking NAFTA (even though the party’s platform demands “immediate withdrawal”). Most Texas Democrats support the agreement, as well.
The Texas Tribune contacted each of the 27 Republican members of Congress from Texas; not one supported Trump’s call for renegotiating NAFTA.
U.S. Rep. Will Hurd noted that the agreement was responsible for increasing trade between Texas and Mexico by almost 110 percent since 2004. U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, reminded the Tribune that “Texas leads the nation in exports and benefits from international agreements that put Texans’ goods and services in front of more customers.”
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, R-The Wood- lands, noted in a statement to The Hill that this country already enjoys a significant manufacturing surplus with our trade agreement partners, including NAFTA. Brady also maintained that the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement will modernize NAFTA, “so we can sell more American-made products and services into Mexico and Canada.”
Support from Democrats was a bit more qualified. U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso, told the Tribune his region was “devastated” by NAFTA initially, as thousands of manufacturing jobs moved across the border “almost overnight.” Since then, he said, El Paso has regained many of the jobs originally lost.
U.S. Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston, voted against NAFTA initially, although he conceded that the agreement has benefitted the state as a whole, “but it hasn’t necessarily benefited my district” (Houston’s East Side). He told the Tribune that if NAFTA were up for a vote today, he would be a no vote.
Green’s misgivings notwithstanding, NAFTA has been good for Texas. Last year alone, we sent approximately $95 billion in goods to Mexico, according to the International Trade Administration. That easily makes Mexico the Lone Star State’s largest trading partner and is the result, primarily, of NAFTA, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has concluded.
It’s not only Texas that benefits. According to a recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce report, trade with Canada and Mexico nearly quadrupled to $1.3 trillion during the first two decades of NAFTA. The two countries buy more than one-third of U.S. merchandise exports. Trade with our neighbors north and south supports nearly 14 million U.S. jobs, with about 5 million of them attributed directly to NAFTA trade.
NAFTA isn’t perfect. As the world economy evolves, as NAFTA itself affects its signatory nations, the agreement requires recalibration on such issues as environmental and labor standards and the impact of global competition and technology change. Changing “many, many things,” as Trump proposes, is empty rhetoric, nothing more. We need NAFTA — and we need more serious proposals to make it better.
It’s not only Texas that benefits. According to a recent U.S. Chamber of Commerce report, trade with Canada and Mexico nearly quadrupled to $1.3 trillion during the first two decades of NAFTA.