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By Patrick J. Buchanan
During the great NAFTA debate of 1993, Americans
were told the only jobs we would lose to Mexico were "dead-end" jobs, that our
high-tech labor force should no longer be doing. At the same time, we would be
creating the kinds of jobs Americans do best, like building commercial
jetliners.
And indeed, since 1994, America has lost 689,000
jobs in textiles and apparel � dead-end jobs to pundits, but to the folks who
lost them, the best jobs they ever had.
Suddenly, however, after the textile industry went
to Mexico, the auto industry followed, though the jobs of U.S. autoworkers were
among the best-paid on earth. Mexico now exports 90 percent more cars to the
United States than America exports to the entire world. In 2000, the United
States, which invented the auto industry, had a trade deficit in autos and auto
parts of almost $120 billion.
Now comes the turn of aerospace, the crown jewel of
U.S. manufacturing. It, too, is heading south. As Joel Millman of the Wall
Street Journal writes: "Like the automakers that turned the cities of Tolucca,
Hermosillo and Sautillo into Little Detroit in the 1990s, Boeing Corp., General
Dynamics Co., Honeywell International Inc. and General Electric Co.'s GE
Aircraft Engines are beginning to make Mexico a base for both parts manufacture
and assembly."
What is the attraction of Mexico over an America
that used to monopolize commercial aircraft production? "You can only cut costs
so much with new machinery," says John Monarch, president of GE supplier Smith
West. "Pretty soon you need to lower labor costs, too." Driessen Aircraft
Interior Systems pays its Mexican workers only $20 a day, which breaks down to
$2.50 an hour � less than half the U.S. minimum wage.
Now, if aircraft can be made by Mexican workers for
$20 a day and computers can be made by Chinese workers for $10 a day, what is
left that America manufactures that cannot be made, far more cheaply, outside
the United States? Answer: Virtually nothing.
To our ruling class, it does not matter where
manufacturing is done, or by whom. If it can be done at lower cost abroad, let
foreign workers take the jobs from U.S. workers. The betrayal is justified in
the name of efficiency. As for our $450 billion merchandise trade deficit, who
cares? After all, trade deficits do not matter.
Or so America's elites now believe. To them,
foreign trade is its own reward � and those who concern themselves with matters
like the loss of our manufacturing base, or economic independence, are living in
the past, as they march confidently into the new Global Economy. But while
America may believe that none of this matters, other nations act as if it
matters greatly, and they are ruthlessly exploiting our indifference to our own
industrial decline and death.
Consider our three largest trading partners:
Mexico, Canada and Japan. A year after NAFTA, Mexico devalued and the peso lost
two-thirds of its value. This tripled the prices of U.S. goods in Mexico, while
slashing the prices of Mexican goods in the United States by two-thirds. Our
trade surplus with Mexico vanished, and Mexico rose out of recession by
capturing a good slice of the American market from the American businesses and
workers who formerly had it.
After the U.S.-Canada trade deal, Canada let its
dollar fall 25 percent against the U.S. dollar, giving Canadian loggers and
wheat growers a decisive advantage over their American rivals. Today, the U.S.
trade deficit with Canada and Mexico is among the largest on earth.
Since Sept. 11, Japan has let the yen fall 12
percent against the dollar, giving Japanese exporters an immediate and huge
advantage over U.S. manufacturers. Clearly, Japan intends to export its way out
of its slump, at the expense of U.S. manufacturers.
Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill calls Japan's
devaluation of the yen "protectionism." Correct. But almost every nation on
earth has devalued against the dollar to seize a share of the U.S. market, at
the expense of U.S. manufacturers. Yet, our elites have adopted a policy of
Gandhian pacifism in the face of this protectionism � these trade wars launched
against an unresisting America.
While other nations act as though trade deficits do
matter, and yet believe manufacturing is vital to their health and dynamism, the
Americans, who once cared deeply about such issues, no longer seem to care.
Thus, nothing and no one stands in the way of stripping the United States of its
entire manufacturing base.
We believe we are wise and the rest of the world
foolish. Of one thing we may be sure. Time will tell us who were the fools.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Patrick J. Buchanan was twice a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and the Reform Party�s candidate in 2000. Now a commentator and columnist, he served three presidents in the White House, was a founding panelist of three national television shows, and is the author of seven books. His current position is chairman of The American Cause. This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available
for free from http://www.printcharger.com/emailStripper.htm
You can't say you weren't warned. The young
are the victims of those who fell to recognize the Truth.
Archibald
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