NAFTA explained by avocados. And shoes.

Everyone hates NAFTA. But what was NAFTA actually supposed to do? Did it deliver on its promise? To understand that, you have to look at America's relationships with two goods: avocados and shoes.

[urbanexpansion]

"Who really thinks about NAFTA every time they pick up an avocado at the grocery store?"


Everyone who watched this video. Thanks.

[vanizakMo]

But you can argue this both way. American farmers get corn subsidies and now they sell them to mexico tax free. Many mexican farmers were devestated by this goes both ways.

[edwardcurtisbennett]

So many people seem to not understand that avocado is just an analogy for 'Mexican products'

[Quarter_Turn]

I’ve been watching a bunch of videos about NAFTA trying to understand it. This is the one that really helped. Thanks.

[adminuser]

what this video didn't said in the corn example is that the US corn is subsidize and that kind of unfairness in the fields killed thousands of rural jobs and that's why they ended up in usa working as illegals.

[edwardcurtisbennett]

It's the opposite in Canada. When NAFTA (called the FTA before Mexico joined) was signed in 1987 55% of Canadians voted for anti-FTA parties in '88. Liberal leader John Turner even said free trade would make Canada an American colony. Today, both the Liberals and Conservatives support NAFTA passionately, and even the socialist, anti-trade NDP prefers to just not talk about it.

[ShortsHound]

Last I heard, NAFTA also included Canada ... and here, Avocados became more expensive ... because they were shipped though US distribution !

[carriebtc]

A few weeks ago, after a series of Trump's rants against Mexico's supposed 'unfair' trade deal, a group of friends and I decided to see if it was true. We took the task of counting the number of labels and tags with the words 'Made in Mexico' or 'Product of Mexico' in some of the most popular retail stores of NYC. A friend chose Bloomingdales, another one 99c Stores, another one Trader Joe's & WholeFoods and I picked up Macy's. Each about 200 labels per store. After 3 days of scouting in our stores for their labels and tags, we were shocked to see that about 75% of the countries of origin of most clothing, kitchenware, appliances, home decor, cosmetics, and toys were MADE IN CHINA. The following 10% 'Made in the US'. Another 10% more almost equally divided between Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia, Honduras, El Salvador, Turkey, and Vietnam. The remainders 5%, between Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, in that order. But the 'Made in Mexico' label was almost nonexistent in most Department Stores. Of about 1000 labels, we only found 3 labels in Macy's, 2 in Bloomingdale's, none in the 99c Stores and about 7 in Trader Joe's and 11 in Whole-Foods (these last two being from Avocadoes and other 'specialty' products -Mexican Avocados, Mexican Beers, Mexican Chillies, etc-). After watching this video I ask: WHERE ARE THOSE 'MEXICAN' PRODUCTS IN THE US part of the 'UNFAIR TRADE' ranted by TRUMP (and FOX, CNBC, etc)? If you have nothing to do, want to have some 'fun' and don't like to be manipulated by the media and your president, I invite you to do your own research. It can shed a great deal of real truth about which country we Americans depend on: CHINA. Ask yourself WHY TRUMP and his PANDERING MEDIA doesn't talk about that? You know why? BECAUSE THEY OWN US. The US Government has a 1.17 TRILLION DOLLARS DEBT to CHINA (as of Jan 2018. 19% of the total US debt to Foreign Countries). Debt that increases every year, every month and every day, since our Government continues borrowing money from the Chinese and only pays interests on the money. See why Mexico is USED as a DISTRACTION to cover up the REAL TRUTH...?! Cheers people. (by the way, the National Debt is of 21 TRILLION DOLLARS, mostly again to, guess who, CHINA).

[vicenteacuna]

Most shoes don't come from Mexico they come from China, or Asia, Mexican shoes go to Europe, where consumers prefer quality over price, cars do come from Mexico because cost every to manufacture at the same price whatsoever in the whole world, that is so corporations can keep more money their pockets, but nothing new this is being done since 1960, maybe you just didn't know

[WestCoastRder]

I was expecting the most biased video ever in favor of NAFTA but I gotta say I'm really pleased by what I saw. Good job

[ApplePotato]

The problem is NAFTA created a lot high tech high paying jobs and a booming farm industry. Mean while low paying manufacturing jobs disappeared from the US. And it is these people that were impacted the most. To be honest even if we threw away nafta it won’t change a thing, besides higher prices. Young Americans just doesn’t want to work in factories or mining. Our culture just don’t values trades or factory workers as much as we use to.

[chrispswann]

You guys forgot to mention the role that automation plays in why a lot of Americans lost their factory jobs

[lori]

With no mention of Canada in this report, it can hardly show the true picture.NAFTA is so much more than Mexican supply of fresh produce to U.S. Not really enough info to tell the real story on this complicated agreement. All three trading partners will feel the impact if NAFTA is cancelled. U.S. cars for instance will skyrocket cause most of THAT steel comes from Canada which has just been slammed with huge tariffs.

[pedrop]

you guys oversimplified a really complex issue and failed

[Gregverse]

Who's here because their teacher told them to watch a video ✌🏻👁👄👁✌🏻

[Donthaveacowbra]

Free trade is a win win deal. Yes you will have focused changes in industries, but those industries were only successful because of lack of competition. Those shoe makers? Maybe they don't compete on price? But may they improve their quality. We can't expect high wage low skill jobs in a rich nation. Those voters who want to bring back manufacturing seem to not understand that brining it back brings you back. It's akin to the government stepping in to save tulle fledgling typewriter business. It's moronic.

[Pablo-boru]

guys, this is just a video to gain a basic understanding, and frankly I think they did a good job at it. I was reading my newspaper and I was confused, because I was not familiar with nafta, but now I have a basic understanding of what it is and what it did, and why there is re negotiations right now between US and Mexico

[jthyatt]

This video is stupid. Although it is indeed accurate, it tries to explain NAFTA around a few industries. US consumers have indeed benefited from Mexican agricultural imports as well as have Mexican consumers from American Midwestern staples. But to conclude that the agreement has had winners and losers in just these few industries in the United States is child's play. It's far more complicated that that. And as the video correctly points out, without NAFTA most of these manufacturing jobs would have gone to to Asia anyway. We need to have a serios conversation in the United States in regards to whether we will be a manufacturing economy or a service based economy with high tech manufacturing jobs as well. Such a conversation will not take place if we have people like Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the center of our national politics.

[mafm]

What they don't talk about in the video is what happened to the people that lost their jobs. Did they remain permanently unemployed? More than likely, they got another job. They may have had to move to get another job, but they got another job. In fact, most of the time, they got higher-paying jobs.

[jaredb]

Canada has a lot of wood. US adds tariffs and claim we are dumping. US decides to protect steel industry and adds more tariffs to Canada. But that is not enough, US produces more dairy than it needs, so now it wants to force it down Canadian throats. (Essentially American taxes will be used so that Canadians can get cheaper cheese.) Tell you what, you want us to buy more dairy, then you can buy our wood.