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As that silver-tongued orator George W. Bush once said: “Fool me once, shame on— shame on you. Fool me—you can’t get fooled again.”
Wise words, indeed, especially when hearing another presidential sales pitch for a trade scam. In the past quarter century, Bill Clinton, George W, Barack Obama, and now the Trumpster have all gushed about the glories We the People would experience if only their signature trade deal is approved. “This landmark agreement will send cash and jobs pouring into the United States,” exclaimed Trump when introducing his USMCA last October.
Sharing his exuberance, two self-proclaimed “citizens groups”—the USMCA Coalition and the Pass USMCA Coalition—have sprung up to campaign for Trump’s proposal, claiming to be acting “on behalf of American workers.” How ironic, since both coalitions are made up of some 200 multinational corporate powers that are together responsible for more than half a million trade-related US job losses under the old Nafta.
Here’s the dirty dozen that outsourced the most jobs:
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| American Airlines | Ford | Motorola |
| Boeing | General Electric | VF Clothing (Northface, Lee, Timberland, Wrangler, etc.) |
| Caterpillar | General Motors | Whirlpool |
| Dell Computer | Hewlett Packard | Intel |
In his 2016 campaign, Trump relentlessly trashed Nafta as a “bad joke,” rightly noting that it induced corporate giants to abandon US workers and communities. He promised to kill it, but now he gloats that his USMCA will fix Nafta’s problems. “This one is a brand-new deal,” he exults.
Seriously? So why are 200 offshoring corporate giants smiling, winking, and spending millions of dollars on PR and lobbying campaigns to ram his “fix” down our throats?