Lori Wallach Of Public Citizen On Why We Need To Rewrite NAFTA

Lori Wallach of Public Citizen thinks we need to rewrite NAFTA.

“Instead of leveling the playing field for us, NAFTA made it easier for companies to outsource jobs to Mexico so they can play employees less,” she stated. “Unless we rewrite NAFTA, NAFTA will keep giving the green light to corporations to outsource American jobs, pushing down wages for everyone.”

Since 1994, just under a million American jobs have been certified as lost to NAFTA just under one narrow program. And every week NAFTA’s helping corporations outsource more jobs to Canada and Mexico. Since NAFTA, Mexico’s low wages have dropped, and U.S. wages are flat.

“It’s not complicated,” said Wallach. “NAFTA lacks labor and environmental standards so companies can move U.S. jobs to Mexico to pay workers their poverty wages, dump toxins, and then ship those products back to sell here, in the U.S.”

According to Wallach, at NAFTA’s heart are special legal protections for corporations that incentivize outsourcing jobs. It’s negative impacts became top issue in 2016.

“Now is time for progressives to speak out for a new trade policy that is neither NAFTA’s neoliberalism nor Trump’s nationalism,” she said. “We need to replace NAFTA with a new deal that cuts out the privileges and benefits for big corporations and puts in the safeguards, and rights for people that planet.”