Politically or actually correct

In 1994 The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came in to force. The premise of this agreement is to allow easier trade between the U.S., Canada & Mexico. The reality however is that products made in these countries are no longer subject to tariff, tariff is a tax that is applied to foreign made goods and products as they cross the border into our country. This tax is supposed to provide a price barrier to allow American workers to receive a fair wage and still have our pricing be competitive with goods produced by underpaid foreign workers. Since 1994 and the end of the tariff on Mexican goods the importation and sale of Mexican made goods has increased exponentially. The manufacture of American made goods has declined at a similar rate and many of the goods previously made by American hands sadly are now made south of the border, the price paid to the remaining manufacturing workers here at home is substantially (on average) well below what workers were receiving at the time. There are multiple other countries (China, Taiwan, Etc.) that sell us a multitude of cut-rate goods pushing our products off the shelf based on expense, but this one speaks to me directly since I am originally from Michigan and I watched so many Auto manufacturing jobs go to Mexico as a result of this agreement. There are a terrible number of working opportunities that have left our borders however as a result of the implementation of NAFTA from Every State please take a look at this link to Citizen.org's map of job loss that provides greater detail on this subject. It is no secret that Congress has recently been heavily lobbied to vote for expansion of this agreement and undoubtedly will again, please remember that this only works in our favor if they buy more of our goods than we do of their's. At last tally we are as a nation making money on the trade agreement, my concern is not only the national profit--which is great, but the manufacturing jobs that have made our country a power and the economic center of the world. We must continue to purchase American made goods from American owned companies, this will increase the U.S. manufactured goods market and if more goods are made here, more goods can be sent to other countries for them to purchase.

We as Americans and trade partners can do better and we owe it to ourselves to do so.

-TODD