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Trump’s Economic Era

the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in
North America. Twenty-one percent of America’s trade
is with these two countries and is the world’s largest
free trade area.
NAFTA has caused the loss of millions of jobs
since 1993. According to Patrick Buchanan, “The Fruits
of NAFTA,” 2006, the big winners are American
corporations. Mexico exports more cars to the U.S. than
the U.S. exports to the world as the big three producers
relocated production and jobs to Mexico.

President Trump’s antagonism toward the Trans-
Pacific Partnership (TPP) and his reservation
concerning NAFTA epitomizes the difference between
globalism and nationalism. Congress never put the
Trans-Pacific Partnership to a vote, and lawmakers
predicted the deal would lead to a loss of American
jobs. President Trump hates the fact that the TPP and
NAFTA could undermine U.S. sovereignty. In a
meeting President Trump had with German Chancellor
Angela Merkel, he stated, “I’m not an isolationist, I’m
a free trader, but I’m also a fair trader.”

DOMESTIC VERSUS FOREIGN LABOR
Suppose you own a widget business. You have
two choices, you can stay in America and pay high
salaries, or you can move your business to Mexico and
pay low wages. The high payments in America could be
less expensive, on a per unit basis, when you consider
both inputs and outputs. Wage is the input and the
number of units produced per hour is the output.

Suppose you pay the American worker twenty
dollars an hour and he can produce two hundred

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