Prior to NAFTA, the accession to the WTO, the opening up of the U.S. economy to unconstrained trade from China, CAFTA and other recent trade deals, their promoters promised the Congress and the American people that these agreements would generate trade surpluses and net gains in new jobs at good wages for Americans. In the case of NAFTA, we were promised that an economic boom in Mexico would result in dramatic decline in illegal immigration. The result has been exactly the opposite—trade deficits, millions of jobs lost, wage stagnation and, in the case of NAFTA, more illegal immigration. Millions of Mexican workers have been forced out of their country by slow growth and low wages. It is worth noting that according to the World Bank, Mexico in 2006, 12 years after the implementation of NAFTA, had the slowest economic growth of any country in Latin America.

Certainly there have been “winners” from these trade deals; those companies in the US and other countries that profit from sweat shop wages and working conditions that undercut the bargaining power of ordinary workers struggling to raise a family. But the overwhelming majority of people who work for a living have been losers. Economists may argue over the exact impact trade has made to real wage stagnation and rising inequality in America, but that it has made a major contribution is not in doubt. As a recent study by the Economic Policy Institute showed, a typical American working household lost more than $2,000 in wages because of foreign trade. This amount is roughly the entire annual federal income tax bill paid by the same type household. The promoters of unregulated trade rationalize the loss of jobs and wages on the grounds that imports provide low prices. But surveys consistently show that job security and opportunity is a more important value for the majority of Americans than cheaper sneakers or CDs.

In addition to the direct impact of trade deficits on jobs and wages, the American people and their children are going to be stuck with a foreign debt now running close to $800 billion a year. The debt is a result of trade deficits financed by borrowing from the rest of the world and selling off our assets. This self-destructive process is already being revealed by the relentless fall of the dollar.

We therefore join a growing number of Americans who believe that the U.S. Congress should declare an immediate halt to all new trade agreements, pending a full and open review of American trade and investment policies, and the development of a credible strategy to maintain American living standards in a globalizing economy.

We support rational trade between the United States and other sovereign nations. Our goal is to make sure that, in this new age of rapid globalization, such trade takes place under rules that are rational and fair to working people here and abroad.

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