Was Ross Perot Right?

Was Ross Perot right about the North American Free Trade Agreement and its effects on workers and immigration? That is the subject of my newest nationally syndicated newspaper column out this past Friday. This is a key question in the wake of Hillary Clinton trying to laugh off the topic at the last presidential debate (see the interchange here on YouTube).

Roughly 20 million Americans in 1992 thought that he was, in fact, right. Those are 20 million independent swing voters - a Ross Perot voter demographic that remains absolutely critical. Just take a look at this map - and make sure to roll your cursor over the states. Notice anything interesting? Yes, that's right: The states where Perot did best are some of the most closely divided and therefore politically important states in the country - states like Nevada, Colorado, Maine, Arizona and Oregon.

The Wall Street Journal notes, the debate over NAFTA is becoming ever more intense in the Democratic caucus race in Iowa. Ben Smith at the Politico puts the whole political question in stark relief in a story published one day after my column:

Though Perot has been off the stage for a decade, strategists in both parties recognize that his supporters remain a key bloc and that voters' dissatisfaction at the end of the administration of the second President Bush has echoes of the mood when his father was booted from office. What's more, neither party has geared up to focus on pet issues of the Perot crowd: opposition to immigration, unfettered trade and foreign wars.

Substantively, whether Perot was right is pretty clear. Though the Washington Post this morning trumpets "NAFTA's record of raising living standards here and in Mexico," as my column shows, the actual facts prove that's a typical lie manufactured by the the same paper that, as economist Jeff Faux documents, worked overtime to silence all criticism of the original NAFTA. Since NAFTA passed, Mexican wages have plummeted increasing illegal immigration pressure at the southern border. Meanwhile, American wages have stagnated, and a million American jobs have been eliminated. That says nothing about the environmental degradation that NAFTA helped accelerate.

Since the column was published, some have asked me how its possible for Mexican wages to have decreased at the same time American jobs were shipped to Mexico. Part of it had to do with the Peso crisis, but the other part has to do with how NAFTA drove Mexican farmers off their land under a glut of corporate agribusiness subsidies. As Mexican farmers headed north to the cities and to the maquiladora border regions in search of NAFTA's manufacturing jobs (the giant sucking sound), there was a glut of cheap labor for these jobs, which was precisely the point. As we all know from our Economics 101 lessons about supply and demand, when there are more workers than there are jobs, wages go down. That's what happened in Mexico.

I hope leading Democrats take a good look at the electoral map and stop going on television and laughing at Perot. But more important than even that, I hope Congress takes a good look at Perot's arguments, and factors them in before passing the new NAFTA expansion it is considering. Those who ignore the history are doomed to repeat it - and America's middle class can't afford to be trampled yet again.

Go read the full column here. And if you'd like to see my column regularly in your local paper, use this directory to find the contact info for your local editorial page editors. Get get in touch with them and point them to my Creators Syndicate site.

On that topic, there's some great news: Thanks to reader support, the column's circulation is growing. The Seattle Times and TruthDig have been added to the list of publications now running my column regularly. Also, the San Francisco Chronicle (which runs the column in its print edition) has added the column to its website as well. So reader support really matters - thanks to all who have helped!

Comments

[mdtaichi]

Please note that Clinton & Obama have expressed their support for and intention to for vote the Peru FTA. Edwards supports Smart Trade rather than NAFTA-style extension of so-called "free trade" agreements.
"Globalization, technological change and outdated labor and workplace laws have fundamentally changed our economy and redistributed the benefits of economic growth upwards. Equally fundamental change is needed to ensure our economy once again rewards work." - Edwards
Hillary Clinton tried in the last debate to laugh off the NAFTA fiasco but roughly 20 million Americans in 1992 not only thought that Ross Perot was correct but voted their convictions. Remember that "giant sucking sound" represented millions of jobs that have been lost. As David Sirota points out, most of those 20 million are independent swing voters.
Roughly ten percent (two million) of those voters have since been job losers due to outsourcing or trade-related displacement. That's ten percent of his vote total versus the entire American workforce of 150 million losing roughly five million total or 3.3 percent. Those voters knew who they were and their vulnerability. Present projections for outsourcing or trade-related displacements range from 15 to 20 million. YOU know who you are and your vulnerability.
That's why Edwards recognizes Smart Trade as the winning issue in Iowa and New Hampshire. The corporate media and powers-that-be have very good reason to dismiss his proposal to "Rebuild The Middle Class Through 21st Century Manufactur­ing." available at LINK: http://johnedwards.com/iowa/20071114-manufacturing/
"Bad trade deals, cheap foreign labor, illegal foreign subsidies and foreign currency manipulation are having a devastating effect on American workers. These practices are stealing the American Dream from the middle class and the broken system in Washington is allowing it to happen. Given this reality, why have Senator Clinton and Senator Obama chosen to support the flawed Peru Trade deal? The NAFTA-model trade deal has already cost us well over a million jobs." - Edwards /

[researcher]

american middle class loves to be trampled. they line up to vote in politicans that trample them year after year.

they just keep on giving and will even work two jobs to make ends meet while the haves and have mores smile all the way to the bank.

maybe they are too busy looking for that sociaist under their beds like their parents did for a commie.

here is a sample of an american voter. talked to a manager of a herb shop today and she did not know the name blackwater and had never heard of waterboarding.

she will be right in there voting like the rest of us.

fascism is on its way must happen to protect the wealth of the have mores.

[hiprogloho]

Bottom line. White trash Forrest Gump rednecks should not be allowed to run for office without an IQ test and/or poison hemlock. For the same people whose ancestors once bought and sold slaves are now selling America itself.

[cylindar]

Perot was definitely right on; and time has proven that fact. What is needed now is to get rid of NAFTA. This country is in deep doodoo and I hope people realize it before it is way too late. However I think Americans are just way too stupid and lazy to get it up. What a pathetic bunch of people!!!

[MinuteMan]

>Clinton may continue to laugh at Perot and plead amnesia when asked about trade policy. And sure, she and her fellow Democrats in Washington can expand NAFTA and ignore the public's desire for reform. But these politicians shouldn't be surprised if that one other Perot prediction comes true again--the one accurately predicting that Democrats would lose the next national election if they sold America out and passed NAFTA.

> Foreshadowing that historic Democratic loss in 1994, he warned, "We'll remember in November."

That's another problem of the DLC/GOP-lite strategy in our current incumbent-safe elections: when the rightist/c­orporatist polices of "centrist" Democrats enrage the voters their only choice is the GOP who are all too happy to bamboozle the voters. Thus we get people voting for "change" and against their own self-interest.

[Pat]

Thanks, David! I've been a little embarrassed all these years for voting for Perot. No more! I voted for Perot and I'm proud of it!
Any ideas about who to vote for next? Sigh...

[realitytrumpsbull]

'middle class' is just the people that are
being robbed out of house and home at every
turn and just don't realize it yet. They used
to have money, used to be fairly comfortable,
and saved and stuff, and are now 'inconvenient
citizens' for not being good statistics for
supporting another federal deficit-enhancing
public giveaway thing or being actual good
slaves for the corporatis­tas....

[Rule Of Law]

David, Thomas Jefferson warned of four things; A too powerful executive branch, a standing army, the establishment of a Federal Bank, and the growth of the commercial class (Corporations)to where it challenged the Government. We know he was brilliant--now we know he was a prophet as well. And, so may be Perot!

Once the Western Movement was over, we began to expand our power and our markets overseas:

The Spanish American War in which we won the Pacific Islands and the Caribbean;

WWI--even though most Americans were opposed--funded by fiat money loaned by the newly created Federal Reserve Bank (actually not Federal, but a consortium of international banks), and paid for by the citizens through the equally new National Income Tax;

Followed by the redistribution of wealth (commonly known as the Great Depression), WWII and our emergence as a military super-power, and the Cold War, which cemented in place the Permanent War footing we find ourselves victims of today.

Every war that has ever been fought, including our War of Independence from Britain, and every economic Event--recession, depression, bubble etc--was motivated by two things: A lust for power and unbridled greed. And war and Economics are their servants. The ultimate goal is Corporate Globalism built on class warfare where workers become commodities with their value set by the the Corporate State. We will have a new feudalism, because Free Trade is not really free; it is just another word for slavery.

This process of economic determinism has been driving Western Civilization since at least the 1500s. With today's technology--instant communications and rapid deployment military--creating the social conditions that ensure the Royal Corporatocracy's domination is as easy as signing the NAFTA agreement, or getting 406 members of the House to vote for Kangaroo political courts, ala Hitler, to try us in when we eventually revolt.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-giraldi/the-violent-radicalizatio_b_74091.html

David, I've read your books--unless we wake up, perhaps you should begin selling each copy with its own set of leg irons and manacles.

[peterg76]

"Was Ross Perot right about the North American Free Trade Agreement and its effects on workers and immigration?"

Come on, is there really any question about this any more? The pro-NAFTA arguments were about as accurate as the Iraq War predictions. Sure, an extremely small wealthy minority is happy with NAFTA, but even they know it was a fraud all along.

[Dandy12]

After one term of Clinton, I voted for Perot...
After 6 years of Bush, in retrospect the Clinton years look pretty good to me.

The idea behind NAFTA, CAFTA, etc. weren't that bad of ideas to begin with. In retrospect, America has suffered by nearly completely loosing our industrial base and throwing the concept of a reasonable balance of trade out the window. Years in the past, I thought about the slogan, "BUY AMERICAN BY AMERICANS", and considered our unbalanced desire to have something made elsewhere cheaper as " short circuit thinking". To counter some of the negative effects of globalization, perhaps a modicrum of protectionism isn't out of the question. Instead of our dangerous indebtedness to the Chinese, I suppose that I would prefer helping those in our hemisphere more. We're definitely walking in an economic danger zone!

[Beaux510]

I voted for Perot.

I knew he was right THEN.

Funny, I find the same labels that they used on Perot being plastered on Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich now.

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

NO ONE seems concerned or able to answer this question: Why has the PRC (CHINA) been allowed to keep its currency at a virtually fixed ratio to the DOLLAR? With one of the top five economies in the world, how is it that their CURRENCY is shielded from appreciation against the dollar? Besides the Walmart crowd--including the 'globalization' myrmidons--who favours this policy POLITICALLY? Why does it go on....!?!?

CHINA does not need/deser­ve/warrant INDUSTRIAL growth SUBSIDIES from the U.S.! The U.S. SHOULD use the power of access to its markets to extract changes from the PRC---before it's too late!

[ihavenobias]

Come on, we haven't lost millions of manufacturing jobs due to Free Trade.

As a conservative I know put it, we lost most of those jobs due to increased automation!

[RedRooster]

Perot was right, as long as we hear the giant sucking sound...an­d...the wind whistling past all the closed plants here in America.

[outnow]

David,

The politico-economic concept to which the United States adheres to has not changed in a century: An open order based on commercial integration and technological innovation with the rapid deployment of armed forces maintain that order, if necessary. This vision has been the strategic consensus of the foreign policy elite of both major parties, long before cold war mentor George Keenan penned a containment theory to defeat communism.

Clinton took office saying the challenge now was to master the emerging global economy, and operate on a global scale. The passage of NAFTA in 1993 relied on GOP votes, demonstrated Democratic commitment to corporate interests, and was hailed by Henry Kissinger as crucial to our foreign policy.

The message to China was that there was no real alternative to our system. The success of this expansionist system relies on military power as the enforcer. The economic payoff is that we are enforcing a stacked deck policy and an expanded military budget which means lots of business for American defense contractors and weapons manufacturers.

Our Congress has been hijacked by corporate interests following 9-11. We have allowed our institutions to be taken over in the name of a globalized American empire that is totally alien to anything our founders had in mind.

Gulf War One was the real beginning of the New World Order of Bush I. In a post cold war era there was no rationale for the exercise of U.SW. military power. With the Reaganite comeback of Bush II with Dick Cheney as de facto president Full Spectrum Dominance and Free Trade are natural partners in global aspirations of unilateral hegemony. The culture of machismo, anti-intel­lectualism­, and religiosity turned Christian fundamentalism into a preemptive strike force where we would rid the world of evil; and we shall decide who is that enemy and who is deserving of regime change. After 9-11, the war in Iraq naturally followed shortly thereafter. NAFTA is a seamless part of world domination and a domestic police state. This is class warfare of the highest order.