Who is this “we” that you speak of Kemosabe?

It was never ratified as a treaty! Most of the Democrats that are currently changing the law never liked it in the first place and not enough of them agreed to it at the time to ratify it and by not ratifying it they reserved the right to change it just like we change any other law.

I suspect that if it had the support of the American people it would have been ratified a long time ago. But it was shoved down our unwilling throats and the only people who have ever benefitted from it are the Canadians, the Mexicans and the Multinationals. I

bet a lot of folks in Ohio and Michigan wish they had back all the jobs that got transferred to Mexico. And I didn’t notice the price of cars or anything else going down as a result either..

The plan though was to expand the trial into full blown open cross border trucking and I’m not sure the impact would have been so tiny. I think your Dad and other truckers might have noticed a very substantial negative impact had they been forced to compete with tens of thousands of trucks that are driven by drivers who earn about 1/4th of his wages and work under totally different standards. One very noticeable difference you pick up on immediately if you travel to Mexico is that truckers are treated like garbage by their employers. They don’t get nice comfy sleeper cabs. They string a hammock under the trailer and sleep in the open by the road.

Frankly, I’m not all that fired up about the benefits of free-trade and globalism anymore and neither is my 201k. I studied all this International Economics in my MBA program two decades ago and I used to be a believer but now I am a sceptic. From my perspective it has been tried and it has failed and we are in a lot worse shape because of it. I’m wondering which of our non-existent industries is going to lead us out of this mess? Our economy has been gutted by globalism and in the past decade our wealth has become illusory. We have gone from one bubble to the next with very little wealth being created to sustain the big spending. The truth is that we are now living on credit cards and we are squandering at an unsustainable rate the wealth that was built by the labors of previous generations. Wealth is either mined, manufactured or grown and we are fast exporting our capability to do any of those things.

With respect to trade with Mexico, I am underwhelmed. Most of what we import and export from them was stuff we used to make ourselves only a decade ago and which provided the jobs that defined our middle class. The exception would be oil but they were selling us that before NAFTA and they would continue to sell us that after NAFTA because without the revenue, their country falls apart.

Take a look at things we are exporting. Mexico’s Top Exports & Imports . Most of it is parts that gets assembled and then re-imported right back into America. That is not trade but rather just cheap labor arbitrage. It is probably good for some Multinational Company bottom lines but I don’t see how it is so good for America.

Trucking is essentially a service and truckers are service providers. I am an accountant which makes me a service provider too. Most Mexicans don’t have the skills to do what I do but I bet a lot of Indians could be trained up pretty fast. I’d be damned pissed off if anybody signed a “free trade agreement” that said Indians were welcome to come here in unlimited numbers and take my accounting job at 1/4 the pay. The government had no business picking one industry like trucking and cutting our workers off at the knees. I frankly don’t think it is either good governance or good electoral politics to be very enthused about doing that.

Republicans had better think about how we are going to get the middleclass to vote for us and importing Mexicans to take their jobs probably is not going to be the right answer.

NAFTA is an agreement and was passed as a simple law by a bare majority of Congress. It was never ratified by 2/3rds of the Senate and is therefore not a Treaty and does not enjoy the status of a Treaty. It is just a law and like every other law on our books is subject to change at the whim of a majority in Congress plus the President’s signature.

I think it is fair to argue that it is not advisable for Congress to exercise these whims and that it may well precipitate negative consequences.

But one of the reasons NAFTA could never garner the support in Congress necessary to ratify it as a Treaty was that in many respects it was a crappy deal. The Bush 41 and Clinton Administrations had no business singling out the trucking industry and all of its independent operators who are mainly just small business people for competition from people living on a wage scale that is less than a quarter of the US living wage. I would not want the Congress shafting me and my industry in this manner and I completely understand why the truckers are unhappy about it and have fought ever since to keep it from coming to pass. I have several friends in the trucking business and today I am happy for them.

I’m more than happy to go along for the ride, as long as a hard and permanent lesson is learned here. (One way, or the other…)

It’ll be good for the nation, long-term.

He is still voting “present”.

He never was an executive; he will never be an executive. The British have demonstrated that he is out of his depth, as have the Russians. I am sure that the rest of the world has noticed this, too. God, how I fear for our nation.

http://franklinslocke.blogspot.com/

This is just more proof that Obama considers his position as more likened to a king than a president. He won so he can do what he wants and to hell with the rest of the world. Funny how the Dems were going to “repair” our image abroad.

The One seems only interested in making deals with countries that hate us and dissing our friends.

Next on the list of friends Obama will insult….Canada!
This is going to be one painful 4 years.