what is wrong with free trade?

Question

the democrats criticized the North American free trade pact in the last debate.
What are the downsides of free trade because i see none.

Answer 1

funny it was a democrat president house and senate when they passed nafta in 1993.

it's no secret that they have paid a price in doing just that..ruined their real only dependable base..in the Unions..whose Industries have left for Mexico and cheap labor

funny too.. how they can now finger point when they were in charge and in control for just two years after Bush I and are responsible themselves

Answer 2

Americans lose jobs but the effect is offset somewhat by having lower overall prices. Free trade also brings the standard of living up in those other countries, because their products are reaching a wider market and there are more job opportunities for them. America is moving away from a manufacturing economy and the people who don't have the ability to pick up a new trade are being left behind.

Answer 3

Free trade - make a pair of sneakers in Indonesia, using child labor, no pollution ctl, for 50 cents a pair then bring that shoe to America and sell it for 150 dollars. All I can say is just wish I owned the factory.

Answer 4

There is no such things as free trade, like free market, the term is an oxymoron.

You have to have something to trade to participate, even if it is a favor. All trade takes place within established rules, requires infrastructure. The U.S. constitution clearly establishes one of the roles of the federal government as conducting treaties and trade agreements.

It is amazing how people get suckered by these sound bites into sacrificing their futures, and the futures of their children by such nonsense. It all began with Reagan, and the people continued to be fooled.

Answer 5

It all depends on who's doing the free trading. Most Governments like free trade when they benefit from it but seem to like it less when others benefit.

Answer 6

Free trade is good as long as there are no protectionisms being use by countries.

Currently, China, India, Russia, Mexico are using currency manipulation as a way to build their economies. Currency manipulation is the easiest way to create a trade surplus.

Trade surpluses transfers wealth from one country (usually 1st world) to another country (usually 3rd world). Trade deficits will eventually bankrupt a country that does not produce new inventions.

Innovation creates wealth and most Asian countries are only copying U.S. inventions. A country's wealth increases by manufacturing new innovations. Currently, the U.S. is allowing other countries to manufacture U.S. inventions. That is increasing the wealth of the countries that are manufacturing U.S. inventions.

The reason why the U.S. has a $12 trillion gross national product is because of innovation. Most of the stuff used around the world was invented in America (that includes cell phones, person computers, LED, lcd screen, plasma tv, microwave oven, electronic television (year 1927), optical recording (cd,dvd, etc), refrigerator, air conditioner, digital camera, digital music recording, digital video, video recorder, computer chip, lightbulb, laptop computer, operating system, computer databases, word processors, spreadsheets, high level computer languages, digital radio transmission, tcp/ip (the internet), etc.. And no other country in the world comes close to designing complex computer processors that are created by U.S. companies (Intel, AMD) )

Many countries survive by just manufacturing U.S. inventions and later exporting them. That is why they are so concerned about the falling dollar. A falling dollar will not allow countries to manufacture U.S. products below the cost of manufacturing the products in the U.S..

This a very large subject, a few paragraphs won't completely answer the question.

The U.S. had to sue many foreign companies because of their protectionism. In some cases, foreign companies bought U.S. manufacturing equipment and sold the exact same product as U.S. manufacturers at a low price. Generally, that is ok since U.S. employees work at a faster work pace (ie. higher productivity) which results in the U.S. product being less expensive if there is no currency manipulation involved.

There was no problem until many foreign manufacturers decided sell their U.S. designed products below cost to drive the U.S. manufacturers out of business ( trade term is "dumping").

Answer 7

The problem with free trade is that there is no quality control on cheep Chinese made junk. They pump it out under slave labor and most of their products either break before they get here or kill the people that use them. Great!

Answer 8

The down side is that we are importing products from countries that have children working in sweatshops for pennies a day and that there are no environmental protections. Meanwhile, in the US good jobs are being outsourced and replaced by low paying service jobs.

Answer 9

Local Business/Corporations got trampled by foreign ones, who has ample cheap/slavery labor available for their business ?

Answer 10

Millions of Americans have lost good paying jobs, duh. If you don't see a downside, you are the boss where you work. Create an international minimum wage and we can talk about it.