Originally Posted by Evil_inKarlate

NAFTA allows trade to be more free than it was before NAFTA, but it does not truly allow free trade. A true free trade agreement would be a very short document. NAFTA was hundreds of pages IIRC.

Free trade tends to optimize the allocation of resources. Those who are willing to work hard will generally have their situations improve, and whose who aren't won't. Further, competition will tend to lower costs and induce more providers of whatever goods or services are most in demand.

There will certainly be 'victims' in this situation, such as some short-sighted, overpaid workers, but there will be more winners, such as those who take the 10-cent jobs becuase they're better than the available 5-cent jobs, such as the consumers who pay comparatively less for items produced by the 10-cent jobs, and for the investors in the companies that try to reduce unnecessary labor expense.

The negative tax implications you cite are simply a matter of poor policy and/or planning. The income tax should be replaced by taxes on imports, consumption, and/or borrowing. Or given that bureucratic inertia and other factors pretty much preclude such changes, one could increase tariffs and taxes on corporations and/or dividends.

For the same reason you eschew objective analysis in favor of oversimplifications, emotional appeals, and populist pandering.


I cannot completely lose here. Even if all your negatives and other emotional appeals were to bear out, NAFTA is still not terrorism.