Jerry Nadler: “since NAFTA we have converted a $2 billion trade surplus with Mexico to a $20 billion trade deficit. In 65 percent of…”

“since NAFTA we have converted a $2 billion trade surplus with Mexico to a $20 billion trade deficit. In 65 percent of union organizing elections, employers have threatened to move to Mexico or to another foreign country if workers have chosen the advantages of collective bargaining. Working people have gotten almost none of the benefits of our expanding economy, as real wages for the middle class have remained static and, for lower-income workers, have actually declined. NAFTA and fast track quite properly protect American investors who invest abroad and protect intellectual property rights, but they do not protect labor and environmental rights. They are imbalanced. We must have balanced trade agreements that protect not only investments and intellectual property, but also labor and environmental standards if trade is to serve all our people, and if our expanding trade is not to serve as a tool to be used to deny a fair share of our economic gains from filtering down to working people and to the middle class. Reject the fast track agreement as imbalanced.”