What Free Trade Has Done to America

“Free trade” has been an unmitigated disaster. It has closed our factories, sent our jobs overseas, and robbed us of the wealth we once took for granted.

Look what we have been left with:

• Our trade deficit is now around $600 billion. This means we are sending $1.2 million out of the country every minute, on average
• The Federal budget deficit for 2012 is over $1 trillion
• Accumulated national debt is over $16 trillion
• Total consumer debt in the U.S. is $11 trillion
• Student loan debt is over $867 billion
• 1 in every 5 homes loans are financially under water

We are racking up this debt at an unprecedented rate, and there is no end in sight. We have been living on deficits and debt for years and are not producing enough to ever pay these debts. We haven’t had a trade surplus in 37 years!

These “free trade” agreements are bad enough, but they are overseen and administered by the foreign-controlled World Trade Organization (WTO), an undemocratic body who rules against the United States 9 out of 10 times a case is brought against us.  Offshoring the manufacturing engines of wealth creation is not enough for the Democratic and Republican politicians, through accepting WTO global governance, they also abdicate US sovereignty and put governance in the hands of appointed international bureaucracies with zero accountability to the citizens.

The facts speak for themselves. We cannot continue like this. We must get out of “free trade” and get out of the WTO. If we do not do so, our economy will surely collapse and our money could be worthless in international trade.

We can and MUST act to stop this from happening. Our politicians are working for the special interests, but they will listen to the voters if enough people speak up.

We should be demanding a plan that will work.  Reverse our trade deficits and manage access to our markets by replacing the globalized Free Trade policy with an American Balanced Trade policy.  By issuing Import Certificates (import licenses) in the same value as our exports, we would end the trade deficit, diverting that purchasing power instead to US-made goods and services.  This would directly create millions of manufacturing jobs and indirectly create millions more jobs through the multiplier effect manufacturing has.

This article adapted from the article "This Is What Free Trade Has Done to America" by George Barlow, originally published December 16, 2013 at Economy In Crisis:

http://economyincrisis.org/content/this-is-what-free-trade-has-done-to-america