NAFTA and Other Trade Deals Have Not Gutted American Manufacturing—Period: Live at Vox.com
Live at Vox.com: NAFTA and Other Trade Deals Have Not Gutted American Manufacturing—Period: Politically speaking, there was no debate on United States international trade agreements in 2016: All politicians seeking to win a national election, or even to create a party-spanning political coalition, agree that our trade agreements are bad things…. From the left… Bernie Sanders…. From the right—I do not think it’s wrong but it’s not quite correct to call it “right,” at least not as Americans have hitherto understood what “right” is—but from somewhere… now-President Donald Trump…. From the center establishment… popular vote–winning (but Electoral College–losing)… Hillary Rodham Clinton…. “I will stop any trade deal that kills jobs or holds down wages, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership. I oppose it now, I’ll oppose it after the election, and I’ll oppose it as president.…” The rhetoric of all three candidates resonates with the criticism of trade agreements that we heard way back when NAFTA was on the table as a proposal—not, as today, something to blame all our current economic woes on… Read MOAR at http://vox.com
This piece actually does only a third of what I wanted to do:
- Lay out how our trade agreements have not decimated manufacturing.
- Lay out what a properly-nurturing macroeconomic and industrial policy to increase the health of our important and valuable communities of engineering practice would be–but stress that such policies would not bring back mass manufacturing jobs.
- Account for the political mishegas.
But I only got through (1). And it is 8000 words. And I had to drop the extended notes and digressions that will go into the bibliographic essay…