ployed or working at jobs that pay less than the ones they lost.Economic surveys of dislocated workers show that the jobs lost to NAFTA, often high-paying manufacturing jobs, are, in the majority of cases, replaced by lower-paid employment.Consider these alarming facts: NAFTA has transformed the U.S.'s $1.7 billion trade surplus with Mexico in 1993 into a projected $14.7 billion deficit for 1998. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, approximately 214,902 American workers have been certified under one narrow program as having been laid off due to NAFTA. U.S. counties on the U.S.-Mexico border have borne a disproportionate burden of NAFTA job losses. In El Paso, TX alone, more than 10,000 jobs have been lost due to NAFTA. Indeed, Texas counties have the highest poverty rates in the country, as well as the highest percentage of adults who have not received a high school diploma. The 10.4% unemployment rate in all U.S. counties bordering Mexico in 1993 has grown to 13.5%. This joblessness may have a direct impact of the nation's crime posture as well.Agriculture is another area of American life that is now in crisis. The "free market-free trade" farm policies of the 1990's have eviscerated U.S. wheat, winter fruit and vegetable, and tomato producers. And they have tied the hands of policy makers, preventing them safeguarding U.S. farmers from the dumping that has resulted from recent shocks like the currency depreciation in Canada and the suppression of worldwide demand for commodities caused by the Asian financial crisis. In addition, because of NAFTA, U.S. producers are now forced to compete with products from Mexico, where agribusinessthough not farm workers or consumersbenefit from lower wages and less rigorous standards on pesticide residues, bacterial contamination and other potential public health threats.In theory, tariff cuts and new competition under NAFTA are supposed to benefit consumers by reducing costs. These savings ar...
