John Shaw: “I have heard for so long we keep talking about NAFTA as if it was somewhat of a disaster. But I think there are some…”

“I have heard for so long we keep talking about NAFTA as if it was somewhat of a disaster. But I think there are some statistics that have to be really examined when we are talking about NAFTA. Sure, there have been some jobs lost in this country because of NAFTA. There have also been some jobs created. In fact, there are many more jobs created since NAFTA than there are jobs that went overseas. Since NAFTA was formed in 1994, U.S. exports of manufacturing goods to Canada and Mexico have grown 55 percent faster than shipments to the rest of the world. And when you look down and see what has happened in Chile, actually our exports have vastly outpaced our imports from Chile. Now, let U.S. talk about what we are trying to do here. We are just trying to have fair trade. Right now, the Central American countries have a preference where their goods come into this country without paying any meaningful tariffs, and there are very few areas where they are restricted. We simply now say give U.S. that privilege in Central America, and Central America says, yes, we will do that, because they know that that is good for their future. And we have another thing to do think about. What about the security interests there? I was here and the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) when we first came in 1981 during the Reagan administration. We had huge security problems in Central America.…”