 I will sign the North American Free Trade Act into law. NAFTA will tear down trade barriers between our free nations. Once about a time, there was a bipartisan consensus that free trade was good for America and the world. It will create the world's largest trade zone and create 200,000 jobs in this country by 1995 alone. NAFTA eliminated most tariffs on products in North America and regional trade climbed from $290 billion to $1.1 trillion over the next 20 years. Canada and Mexico became the two largest destinations for U.S. exports. Although George W. Bush imposed jobs killing steel tariffs in 2002, three years later he signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement, eliminating most trade barriers between the United States and the region. But after the financial crisis, Occupy Wall Street and the resurgence of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, America's free trade consensus fractured. Obama couldn't get members of his own party to ratify the next free trade agreement, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP, in my view, is a continuation of disastrous trade policies. Enough is enough. We need new approaches to trade, which creates jobs in America and not in China. Democrats blamed globalization for destroying manufacturing jobs. There's a lot of data about what's happened in the trade agreements of the past and the American worker has not done well. And they blamed unemployment caused by globalization for white working class support for Donald Trump, who in turn led the GOP to stop even paying lip service to the virtues of free trade. We're going to renegotiate NAFTA. Probably the worst trade deal ever agreed to signed in the history of the world. The globalizes over-promised and under-delivered. There's no doubt that free traders have promised a lot when it comes to trade agreements and the benefits of trade. Scott Linsicome specializes in trade policy at the Cato Institute. But in terms of under-delivering, that's crazy talk. Our goal is a nation must be to rely less on imports and more on products made here in the USA. We're bringing manufacturing back to the United States. Probably the biggest myth is that globalization has resulted in the destruction of the United States manufacturing base and the destruction of American manufacturing jobs. The reality is far from that. The United States remains the second largest manufacturing nation in the world. Per worker output in the United States is actually higher here than it is in almost every other country on the planet. It's true that the total number of Americans working in the sector has declined, but that's a global phenomenon driven by automation. US manufacturing output has more than doubled since the passage of NAFTA. We just make a lot of stuff with fewer workers, and that productivity is the main reason why we've seen jobs decline in manufacturing. It's not simply about China. We can't continue to allow China to rape our country. It's the greatest theft in the history of the world. The China Shock is a series of papers written a few years ago that looked at Chinese import competition in the United States between 1999 and 2011, and is routinely used to denounce not only China trade, but also globalization writ large. These economists found that it was the cause of several million American jobs lost. Chinese import competition surely displaced some American workers. It also helped American consumers saving American families hundreds of dollars per year for the rest of our lives. That savings goes towards other goods and services, creating new, better paying jobs for American workers. A lot of the jobs that were offshore are jobs that are simply unfit for a high wage, high productivity US economy. A lot of the jobs that were displaced by Chinese imports were on their way out anyway, either because of changes in technology and productivity here in the United States, or because this was part of a century-long trend of these jobs moving offshore, either to China or to other lower-wage destination countries like, say, Vietnam or Mexico. This pandemic has underscored the vital importance of reshoring our supply chains and bringing them back into the United States where they should have never left. This pandemic has really illustrated the vulnerability of the United States to China's control of our supply chain. Globalization, actually, I think has been reproven during the pandemic. The fact is that when you look at the industries and the products that are most affected by supply chain crises and shortages, whether it's baby formula or COVID-19 rapid tests or intermodal chassis or pickup trucks, you can go down the list. And when you scratch those shortages, you actually find protectionism underneath. 98% of all baby formula consumed in the United States is made in the United States and yet shelves are bare for not just days but months at a time. Baby formula is the classic example. It's a terrible tragedy, but it's a really useful lesson for the perils of on-shoring and protectionism. And imports are basically blocked. Not only that, you combine that with high regulatory barriers and strict regulation of baby formula. And what happens is you have a market that is extremely sclerotic. It's unable to adjust in times of crisis. And so when a baby formula factory in Michigan went offline, the market couldn't suddenly adjust and adapt. Imports couldn't fill the gap. We also didn't have the pre-existing supply and distribution networks that were needed to quickly fill those gaps and make our shelves full again. While supply chains and globalization and global pandemics surely carry some risks, the risks are far greater when we put all our eggs in that protectionist basket. But free and open trade isn't just good for Americans. It has immeasurable benefits for the global poor. It's a major reason why billions of humans around the world have risen out of poverty. Our purchasing of that cheat t-shirt gives those humans another opportunity. The opportunity to work in a factory to escape abject poverty and subsistence living. And while we might look down on those jobs, it's an immense step up from starvation and sex work and other types of things that individuals are being forced into. If you look at the numbers, according to the International Labor Organization, trade and globalization have helped remove billions of people from that abject poverty. China is the most obvious example, but it's not just there. Sub-Saharan Africa, Bangladesh, India and the rest. Millions and millions of people are now able to live more comfortable lives, more stable and secure lives because of free trade.