'Free Trade Doesn't Work: What Should Replace It and Why'

[Judi Lynn]

Ian Fletcher.Author,
'Free Trade Doesn't Work: What Should Replace It and Why'
Posted: March 20, 2011 08:00 PM
More Free Trade Agreements? When NAFTA Failed

With the Republicans and the Obama administration attempting to rush headlong into a new trade agreement with Korea, and possibly also with Panama and Colombia as well, it is incumbent on Americans to apply a bit of empiricism. How have our past trade agreements worked out? Above all, how's the grand-daddy of them all, NAFTA, doing?

Unfortunately, NAFTA is a veritable case study in failure.

This is all the more damning because this treaty was created, and is administered, by the very Washington elite that is loudest in proclaiming free trade's virtues. So there is no room for excuses about incompetent implementation, the standard alibi for free trade's failures in the developing world. So if free trade was going to work anywhere, it should have been here.

Instead, what happened? NAFTA was sold as a policy that would reduce America's trade deficit. But our trade balance actually worsened against both Canada and Mexico.

More:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-fletcher/more-free-trade-agreement_b_838196.html

Editorials:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x594020