On replacing NAFTA

Dear editor:

I don’t want to address possible racism of the president, or the obvious nepotism his family members display, or the many questionable aspects of his morality. Many letters have already addressed these issues in the last two years. I want to confront the president’s so-called great business dealings that so many folk say was the main reason they voted for him and still support him, including some of my relatives.

I will dismiss for the time his four recorded business bankruptcies. I want to address his plan to replace NAFTA. Now, I agree with him and others before him that NAFTA eventually induced corporate giants to outsource jobs in Mexico and China and other countries. The dirty dozen such include American, Boeing, Caterpillar, Dell, Ford, General Electric, General Motors, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Motorola, VF Clothing, and Whirlpool. Stats show these outsourced the most.

Two hundred (200) multinational corporations are responsible for 500,000 estimated job losses. But here is the rub: President Trump’s new USMCA coalition includes those SAME 200 who are now spending millions in PR and lobbying campaigns in support of it? The president now gloats that USMCA will fix the problems of NAFTA. Have you gentle readers heard of the proverbial “fox supervising the hen house?” Though I was a “poor country Arkansas boy” who worked hard and got a formal education with several degrees, I believe my part Cherokee grandfather who raised me with a fifth-grade education would have said, “That dog won’t hunt.” Let’s mull that over, shall we? Try having a good day, regardless of the petty actions of so many in Washington. I do believe grade school boys playing marbles could get along better.

John W. “Doc” Crawford Hot Springs