The Columbus Free Press

Stop the Expansion of NAFTA

The Ohio Fair Trade Campaign needs activists across the state of Ohio to keep their neighbors and friends involved and informed about the NAFTA issue. We need people who can generate letters and support in the fight against NAFTA. We can keep in contact with you as different situations arise. It is a community effort and it is there that the fight exists.

As you read these words, many of our members of Congress are working to give away American jobs by expanding NAFTA to Chile and to other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. However, Marcy Kaptur (D-Toledo) introduced legislation on November 17 designed to hold NAFTA to its promises. The proposed NAFTA Accountability Act would scrutinize NAFTA and hold it accountable to the promises its proponents made two years ago to possibly amend or repeal it. In the two years since NAFTA was implemented, the trade agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada has proven to be a costly failure.

Just consider the facts:

• Seventy thousand American workers have lost their jobs and are applying for assistance from the program designed for workers displaced by NAFTA called the "NAFTA Unemployment Assistance" program (TAA). Real wages in the U.S. have declined 3% during NAFTA's first year. By the end of 1995, job losses had cost Americans another 700,000 jobs as wages continued to fall.
• Two years ago, the U.S. held an annual $3 billion trade surplus with Mexico. The U.S. is likely to have a $15 billion trade deficit by the end of 1995, as well as an additional $15 billion deficit with Canada.
• Ohioans have paid a price as well! Companies like Procter & Gamble and General Tire which promised more jobs as a result of NAFTA have either produced no new jobs in Ohio or laid off workers because of the free trade agreement. Most importantly, despite a promise of increased jobs, Ohioans have not benefited from NAFTA with either higher wages or more jobs.
• Conditions for the Mexican people are still much worse. Real wages and purchasing power have been cut by 50% since NAFTA as the financial benefits of NAFTA flow into the hands of a corrupt government. NAFTA has cost the people of Mexico a crushing one million jobs since January of 1995. As a result, NAFTA threatens peaceful democratic reform and economic development in Mexico.
• NAFTA has produced horrible and widespread environmental damage throughout Northern Mexico and the American southwest. One of the worst examples of this is the increase in cases of a disease called anencephaly, a birth defect resulting in an exposed or missing brain because of excessive exposure to toxic chemicals. These toxins were introduced into the local environment through unrestricted trade.

1. I am writing as a supporter of the Ohio Fair Trade Campaign and its efforts to prevent the expansion of NAFTA and other unfair international trade agreements.
2. Please vote in FAVOR of the NAFTA Accountability Act which would repeal or amend NAFTA if it proves detrimental to labor and human rights as well as environmental standards.
3. I urge you to vote against any trade agreement which would expand NAFTA to Chile or any other country.
4. Write back to me and tell me specifically how you stand on this issue.

• Write your member of Congress at: U.S. Congress, Washington, D.C. 20515.
• Give them a telephone call as well.
• Contact the Ohio Fair Trade Campaign at: 998 Northwest Boulevard, Columbus, Ohio 43212, 614-299-9446, fax: 614-222-4092. Send your name, address and phone number to us to keep informed on this issue.