Mickey Kantor: ‘NAFTA, on balance, has been good’

October 28, 2011

As part of Need to Know’s report on the continuing effect of the North American Free Trade Agreement, we visited Evansville, Indiana, to get a first-hand look at how NAFTA has affected the community and its residents. To continue our exploration of NAFTA’s legacy, Mickey Kantor joins host Ray Suarez to discuss the trade agreement’s successes and failures over the years. Kantor was the United States Trade Representative under President Clinton.  He helped negotiate NAFTA and push the trade agreement through Congress in 1993.

Watch the rest of the segments from this episode.

Last modified: October 28, 2011 at 5:26 pm
Tags: , , ,
 

Comments

  • Anonymous

    Are those MASSIVE AGRICULTURE SUBSIDIES to force Mexicans to migrate to maquiladoras and American farms “free trade”?

    Are China’s State Owned Factories and corporate complicity in that dictatorship “free trade”?

    Read about PetroCaribe and U.S.A.I.D, et al  and what Bill Clinton has said about American involvement in Haiti.

    Read  how Monsanto, with U.S. government help, strong arms  countries all over the world

    Then you’ll begin to understand know how “free trade” REALLY works.

  • Bob Thomasson

    Wow,,the names of companies leaving the u.s. is long Herseys,Toshiba,Price-Pfizter,Whirlpool and otrhers with no name recognition. I really don,t beleive he can name any that have left Mexico for say Tenneessee. On balance though it was great for him, he got a paycheck signed by Uncle Sugar anyway.Right Mr. Ambassador.  We,re opni9ng a new Brothel here in Nevada so your daughters can work at.Much Love Bob Thomasson

  • Anonymous

    Wait. Nevada has O% state income and 0% corporate tax, and many unemployed  and undocumented labor to work for peanuts. I’m sure The Sands, MGM, Wynn’s etc, will be back from Macau, China, any day now. Yessiree, any day now…….

  • jan

    They probably don’t want to send Kantor out to do any more PR work.  He came across to me as having a superior attitude towards us, belittling, and basically just blowing off people’s loss of income and the ensuing personal disasters as unimportant.  

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_INPKCWKH2U7OGEMW4CXRYJ4LTQ Robert

    cheep labor,, it wont be long tell our wages go down so we can commpete, this is what its really about big business took over the goverment to get rid of regulations so they can cash in on slave labor from china. Nafta is bad  and free trade is bad we need more regulations to help the working class people. 

  • John_hepburn

    The whole works of them seem to have an attitude of being of a different “class” than the rest of us. We need to find a person to represent us and do him/her as a write in so they don’t have to compete financially with the corporate,,,,prostitutes. It’s the only way I see us getting out from under their thumbs.

  • John_hepburn

    Oh, but we increased our agriculture jobs out of the deal,,,,,you mean those jobs that we then imported millions of Mexican citizens to do for 40 cents a bucket.

  • Claudia

    The problem is that in order to get elected,politicians need obscene amounts of money. The 99% can’t afford to have their own president. We were well fed and kept content,compliant, for a long time. They gave us silly things to occupy our attention,keeping up with the Joneses,keeping up with fashion. They used racial “pride” not to uplift but to separate us. The suffering of the third world happened far away. It didn’t touch us. It’s touching now. I don’t see how it can be fixed. When corporations are “people” and can give undisclosed amounts of money to campaigns, anonymously, and they don’t even need us as consumers anymore because there are other,growing markets in other countries,we’ve lost all our power. We’ve become insignificant,they’ve known it,and we’re just recognizing it.

  • Thelastford

    Kantor’s comment about China, ie. nobody could have foreseen that it would become the factory of the world.
    This is insane the declaration for China to move to a “market economy” was made in 1978. By the the time NAFTA was enacted there were 1000s of Chinese trade reps and agents soliciting business ie. factory orders/manufacturing throughout North America.
    I know because my company was dealing with the Chinese/mainland via Hong Kong in 1986.
    I saw it and I am a small business man.
    The Europeans were there ie. big corporations and after the 1989 crush the U.S. boys lined up!
    I will believe this for eternity, that you can NOT TRUST one person in government as to what they say or will do.
    And what is more absurd is, these individuals that live off of duplicity are always INVITED GUESTS on TV Shows!

  • http://twitter.com/Helix2009 Joe Schultz

    Let Mickey Kantor take at least a 50% pay cut and see him begging for our forgiveness!

  • http://twitter.com/catdayz100 Florence

    Suppose US citizens can immigrate to China, Australia, Russia, etc. just about anywhere but here in the USA. Being an American citizen seems not to matter anymore either with Globalization The USA truly is over, the US Govt. not a super power anymore though they act as though they are. There’s no loyalty, it used to be called treason. The president of the USA and ex president’s know what’s  happening and what the USA’s future entails and probably whether we’ll have a 3rd world war. The whole global world population will most likely be run as a global communist’s, we’ll all work doing what we’re told to do and in our personal lives. Liberty, Justice and Freedom are a thing of past and those lucky enough to have lives in time when it kind of was will be happy when it’s their time to die and leave this cruel oppressive earth where the Govt. and the super wealthy rules all.

  • Anonymous

    Money became “free speech”, our economy is the result.

  • Anonymous

    Hey, why the sour grapes?   NAFTA’s unemployed Mexican farmers have been a real boon for some:

    “How a big US bank laundered billions from Mexico’s murderous drug gangs.”

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl...