NAFTA Is Great For America According to CEA President

January 18, 2008 

The Facts 

Gary Shapiro, President of Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), had a “debate” with Lou Dobbs last night on CNN. According to Shapiro, NAFT has been the greatest thing since the industrial revolution for the American economy, and NAFTA has produced “25 million high-paying, good jobs in America over the past 15 years and lost only 3 million jobs”. He went on to say that “every country we have a free trade agreement with, our exports have grown dramatically and we’ve got more jobs”.  

My View 

Gary Shapiro must be privy to some documented facts that the rest of the nation is not privy to. According to the Bureau of Foreign Trade, we have a $6 trillion trade deficient. It increase by over a half trillion in 2007 alone. And according to the labor department, we have had a net loss of jobs since NAFTA was passed into law, and the new jobs have been much lower paying jobs such as in the service industry (restaurant and janitorial). 

No one expects Gary Shapiro or anyone else in his position to admit the truth about NAFTA, as NAFTA is their bread & butter. But Lou Dobbs tried several different ways to get Shapiro to answer questions he did not want to answer. Things like “How many of your members, would you say, produce goods overseas and bring them to the United States?” Shapiro would not answer that question, so Dobbs asked him the same question two more times, but still no answer. He talked around the question. 

Shapiro tried to steer the debate toward oil being the cause of the trade deficient, but Dobbs would not let him do that. Shapiro said 70% of our trade deficient was due to oil. But when the facts were finally laid to rest, it turns out that oil accounts for only $400 billion, not trillion, of the trade deficient, a very far cry from 70%. With that, Shapiro said to Dobbs that he had his opinion and that he, Shapiro, had his opinion. Opinion; one of the greatest defenses ever to a loosing argument. Then Shapiro accused Dobbs of wanting to put up a wall around the US. Again, another great defense to a loosing argument, misquoting what your opponent has said. Dobbs had said repeatedly that all he and others like him want is a balanced trade. Shapiro finally asked, “what do you want?” Dobbs answered “I have said that I want to see a reciprocal mutual balanced trade policy carried out by this country. In other words, I want us to have precisely the same trade balance as our principal trade partners around the world”, to which Shapiro said that he, Dobbs, knew that was “that’s unprecedented and undoable”. In the end, Dobbs asked Shapiro that if we are doing so well, why is it that we have a $6 trillion trade deficient, to which Shapiro said “Because we’re doing very well and our economy has grown faster than other countries lately, that is what it is. You know that.” Evidently Shapiro did not watch Ben Bernanke in from of the Congressional committee yesterday when Bernanke said that all other industrial nations’ economy was out pacing ours.  

Typical politics; when facts are not on your side, deny, deny, deny. If you are familiar with my sites, you know my philosophy; “truth is truth, lies are lies”.