Ross Perot on Free Trade 1992 & 1996 Reform Party Nominee for President

Get other nations to lower import barriers

While tariff barriers can be significant impediments to free trade, non-tariff barriers can prove to be equally or more troublesome. For example, some of our Asian trading partners cause endless delays in approving US-made products. In some cases, they virtually ban our products.

Trade deficit is as bad as budget deficit

Balancing the budget will bring us closer to eliminating the trade deficit. [Some other things are]:
• Train our workforce better.
• Build quality into our products.
• Bring more long-term professionalism to our trade negotiations.
• Persuade other nations to remove non-tariff barriers.
• Become more sensitive to other cultures.
• Pay attention to developing nations. Analyze our potential on an industry-by-industry basis.
• Stop blaming foreigners for our troubles.
• Examine new tax policies, like a VAT.

Trade deficit improves if we understand foreign culture

And we handicap ourselves by persisting in using the English units of measure for most of our manufacturing processes, when almost every other industrialized nation has adopted the metric system.

Consider, too, that in many nations, people are accustomed to buying food products in smaller packages and quantities than we use. Sellers must learn to adapt to different markets. We must become more understanding of the cultures and buying habits of others.

Lost NAFTA debate with Al Gore

A Gallup poll taken a week after the debate showed Perot’s favorable ratings plummeted from 66% to 29%. NAFTA passed the House, and Clinton signed the agreement by year’s end.

Perot has developed a theory for why Gore may have done so well: “If you want the ultimate education on the NAFTA debate, watch it again, and watch Al Gore’s ear. And there is something glistening in his ear,” [i.e., a radio to get assistance from off-stage].

Keep jobs in US instead of giant sucking sound toward Mexico

We need jobs here, and we must manufacture here if we wish to remain a superpower. We must stop shipping manufacturing jobs overseas and once again make the words “Made in the USA” the world’s standard of excellence.

We can do it. The question is--will we? It’s up to us, the owners of this country--THE PEOPLE.

Mexicans are good; NAFTA is not

If the administration pursues its plan to have NAFTA in place by the end of 1993, then American voters must take action. If they agree that NAFTA should be rejected, they must contact their representatives and stop it.

Fast Track makes more secrecy and less public input

“Fast track” did not allow a Senate filibuster. For the Senate to forgo its right to filibuster is unusual. Since 1960, the Senate has approved or ratified 25 treaties, conventions, and agreements-including nuclear nonproliferation treaties-all without “fast track.”

Now. Pres. Clinton gets to decide if or when to submit NAFTA to Congress. The irony is that the many new members of Congress elected in 1992 who opposed NAFTA are still bound by the limited-debate, no-filibuster, up-or-down vote restrictions imposed by the “fast track” legislation in 1991. Of course, that is why the NAFA advocates wanted “fast track.”

NAFTA is good for investors & bad for jobs

Ultimately, NAFTA is not a trade agreement but an investment agreement. NAFTA’s principal goal is to protect the investment of US companies that build factories in Mexico. This is accomplished by reducing the risk of nationalization, by permitting the return of profits to US businesses, and by allowing unlimited access to the American markets for goods produced in Mexico.

NAFTA’s main beneficiary: 36 people who own half of Mexico

In 1993, President Salinas hosted a private dinner for 29 of these Mexican elite. He asked the businessmen to each make a $25 million political contribution to his party, the PRI. All said that they would contribute. For these men, it would be money well invested because NAFTA would guarantee the advantages that President Salinas had gained for them.

NAFTA will cause a giant sucking sound as jobs go south

Mexico’s national development strategy is reminiscent of strategies used by Japan, Korea, and Taiwan a generation ago. Like the strategies used by those countries, Mexico’s strategy depends on taking jobs from the US.

The New York Times reports that the skills of Mexican workers already match the skills of 70% of the labor force in the US. Once properly trained, Mexican workers’ productivity and work quality equals that of anyone, anywhere in the world.

Mexico keeps its wages low to attract foreign investment. This strategy has worked.

Maquiladoras just steal jobs; it’s not really “trade”

US multinationals created almost as many new manufacturing jobs in Mexico under the Maquiladora Program between 1986 and 1990 as they created in the US-92,000 jobs versus 97,000 jobs. Most of the goods produced in the maquiladoras are shipped into the US market. Consequently, most of the so-called trade between the US and Mexico is not trade as trade is commonly understood. Rather, it is primarily US companies shipping their own machinery, components, and raw materials across the border into their Mexican factories and then shipping their finished or semi-finished goods back over the border into the US.

Altogether, more than half of the US “exports” to Mexico never entered Mexico’s domestic market-[actual trade was] less than $8 billion of the $41 billion of US exports [claimed] in 1992.

Ten principles of a good trade agreement with Mexico

At a minimum, a new round of trade negotiations with Mexico should include the following ten principles:
1. A coherent, long-term US trade strategy
2. Negotiate with complete integrity: prohibiting all US officials from ever working as foreign lobbyists after they leave office
3. Do not violate national sovereignty
4. Uphold the legal rights of US citizens: allow judicial review for disputes by American citizens
5. Increase jobs and wages for American workers
6. Increase jobs and wages for Mexican workers: allow unions & other labor safety rights
7. Do not make Mexico an export platform into the US: require and enforce strict rules of origin
8. Protect the health and safety of all parties: like US FDA standards
9. Protect the environment: only allow imports that meet US standards
10. The agreement must be enforced: including well-trained customs agents and the tools and technology to do their job.

Long-term US trade strategy: focus on debt & jobs

Any trade deals with Mexico, or any other nation, must be considered in the context of how they fit into the long-term US trade strategy, reflecting these realities:
• The Cold War is over
• The US does not have enough good jobs
• The US is $4 trillion dollars in debt and must not do anything to damage its tax base
• Every other nation plays by a different set of rules.

As a nation, the danger of failing to think strategically about trade is measured by the fact that the US trade deficit in 1993 will be close to $100 billion. A trade deficit of this magnitude means a loss of 1.9 to 2 million US jobs.

NAFTA means a giant sucking sound as jobs are lost

BUSH: I am for the North American Free Trade Agreement. I think free trade is going to expand our job opportunity. I think it is exports that have saved us when we're in a recession. We need more free trade agreements.

CLINTON: I say it does more good than harm if we can get protection for the environment so that the Mexicans have to follow their own environmental standards, their own labor law standards, and if we have a genuine commitment to reeducate and retrain American workers who lose their jobs.

Bad trade deals come from Washington insiders cashing in

PEROT: That's right at the top of my agenda. We've shipped millions of jobs overseas, and we have a strange situation because we have a process in Washington where after you've served for a while, you cash in, become a foreign lobbyist, make $30,000 a month, then take a leave, work on Presidential campaigns, make sure you got good contacts, and then go back out. We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. To those of you in the audience who are business people, pretty simple: If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers, and you can move your factory south of the border, pay $1 an hour for labor. There will be a giant sucking sound going south. So if the people send me to Washington, the first thing I'll do is study that 2,000-page agreement and make sure it's a two-way street.

NAFTA allows prison-made Chinese textiles into US via Mexico

NAFTA establishes rules that deny preferential treatment for goods produced outside of North America. The way for a Japanese or European company to get preferential treatment, of course, is to build a factory in Mexico. US textile makers who want to be competitive will be forced to move jobs to Mexico or go out of business.

Assume the US could put enough customs agents along the border to inspect every item exported from Mexico to the US. Are those customs agents going to be able to tell the difference between a shirt made by prison labor in China and a shirt made in Mexico