![]() It’s worth recalling that for Bill Clinton to pass NAFTA he required the unstinting support of his putative enemy, then House Minority Leader Newt Gingrich, and in 2000 turned to Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert for crucial help in passing permanent normal trade relations with China, an even more damaging trade agreement for American workers.ĭissent on “free trade” (which in U.S. Bush’s temporary imposition of tariffs on imported steel in 2002), passing three more free-trade agreements certain to eliminate more jobs. Since then, the two parties have closed ranks in their anti-tariff orthodoxy (the only exception was George W. Once in office, he was true to his secret promise: The new president dropped his hammer and stopped talking about reforming NAFTA. Nevertheless, Obama pledged in a debate with Hillary Clinton to “renegotiate” NAFTA and “use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage” to get “labor and environmental standards that are enforced.”Īt the same time, however, Obama dispatched his economic adviser Austan Goolsbee to reassure the Canadian government that he didn’t mean a word of his pledge. NAFTA is now believed to have caused at least 700,000 net job losses (“displaced,” in the jargon of the Economic Policy Institute), but the number is likely much higher (based on the Labor Department’s granting of aid eligibility to the estimated 2.5 million people it says have been harmed by trade agreements since 1994).Įager to knock out Hillary Clinton, Obama’s campaign published a flyer headlined “Only Barack Obama fought NAFTA and other bad trade deals,” an exaggerated claim from a member of the Chicago political clique that did so much to pass NAFTA. Shred company youngstown free#The only difference between then and now is that Obama’s campaign criticized the Clinton administration’s 1993 drive to pass the North American Free Trade Agreement. Must we reprise the record yet again? In 2008, Obama and Hillary engaged in much the same pantomime during their Ohio primary contest, each claiming to care more than the other about industrial decline and shrinking factory employment. And, as usual, the same reporters let Obama and the Democrats get away with their shallow pose of union solidarity and blue-collar sympathies. In 1962–63, before the Supreme Court ban on prayer in public schools, I recited the Lord’s Prayer every day alongside my first-grade classmates at the Palm Beach Gardens Elementary School, and I don’t remember any of us getting credit for “job creation.”Īs usual, the media reports these campaign stops-the earnestness of the politicians and the anger of the voters-with straight-faced credulity, as if the politicians meant what they said and the voters were able to take revenge on unresponsive candidates. Santorum, for his part, apparently believes that banning abortion and restoring prayer to public schools will cause new steel mills to open in Youngstown, Cleveland, and Chicago. “I understand why jobs come and go.” Does he ever! Romney’s practice of loading companies with debt, firing their workers, and selling the disassembled assets to profit already wealthy people like himself has very much become the “real” economy of the United States. “I spent my life in the real economy,” blathers Romney. To borrow a phrase from Santorum, it’s enough to make you throw up. The leveraged-buyout mogul, Mitt Romney, sheds crocodile tears in factories, while the Bible-flogging Rick Santorum offers Christian salvation to stanch the wounds of the underpaid and unemployed. Presidential candidates are once again crisscrossing the Midwest, making believe they’re dreadfully upset by the plight of the working class. This column originally appeared in the Providence Journal on March 14, 2012. MacArthur is publisher of Harper’s Magazine and author of the book You Can’t Be President: The Outrageous Barriers to Democracy in America. ![]()
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