NAFTA is not the reason for our labor and economic issues.

CAFTA, MFN, and various other so called "free trade" agreements with countries such as Korea, Jordan, Columbia, Panama, and you're looking at several million lost middle class jobs that will never return. Its not just manufacturing either. There are all the manufacturing spinoff and support jobs lost.

Prior to NAFTA, the jobs being shipped overseas was minor compared to what followed the next 20 years.

The actual job losses attributed to NAFTA were close to one million, and that is just direct job losses. That info comes from Public Citizen. Nobody counts all the spinoff and support jobs eventually lost when all those factories closed and moved to Mexico or other countries. Many towns that lost factories eventually lost other jobs in the community because the factory leaving left less tax revenue, reduced economic activity, higher unemployment, etc.. Small and medium sized towns throughout the south and midwest have been gutted over the past 20 years thanks to factories closing and moving overseas.

Here is data from American Progress.........

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/labor/news/2012/07/09/11898/5-facts-about-overseas-outsourcing/

1. U.S. multinationals shifted millions of jobs overseas in the 2000s. Data from the U.S. Department of Commerce showed that “U.S. multinational corporations, the big brand-name companies that employ a fifth of all American workers… cut their work forces in the U.S. by 2.9 million during the 2000s while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million.”

Furthermore, a recent Wall Street Journal analysis showed, “Thirty-five big U.S.-based multinational companies added jobs much faster than other U.S. employers in the past two years, but nearly three-fourths of those jobs were overseas.”

2. As overseas outsourcing has expanded, U.S. manufacturing has suffered the brunt of the blow. According to a report on outsourcing by Working America, “Manufacturing employment collapsed from a high of 19.5 million workers in June 1979 to 11.5 workers in December 2009, a drop of 8 million workers over 30 years. Between August 2000 and February 2004, manufacturing jobs were lost for a stunning 43 consecutive months—the longest such stretch since the Great Depression.” Manufacturing plants have also declined sharply in the last decade, shrinking by more than 51,000 plants, or 12.5 percent, between 1998 and 2008. These stable, middle-class jobs have been the driving force of the U.S. economy for decades and theses losses have done considerable damage to communities across the country.
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we can stop it as long as corporations want maximum profit and consumers want cheaper goods. I hope that changes.

But isolating ourselves won't solve our problems. Might have delayed some changes for a few years, but that is about it.

Nobody said a freaking thing about "isolating" ourselves. Protecting our jobs, economy, and standard of living is not isolation!!!! We sure as hell were not "isolated" prior to all these insane fake free trade agreements from the 1990s and beyond.

I think we need to tax corporations considerably that outsource jobs considerably more. But world is changing and we better figure out how to adapt. We aren't returning to the 1950s and 1960s. We can get angry, blame NAFTA, whatever, but it won't change a thing.

other developed country. Since the 1960's the only period of increase in manufacturing employment was during the Clinton administration after NAFTA. They had declined steadily for 30 years before Clinton and for 10 years afterwards, just increasing again starting in 2011. To blame a 50-year decline on NAFTA seems to be searching for a boogeyman.

FDR actually proposed an International Trading Organization (ITO) in 1944 (along with the IMF and World Bank) but by the time negotiations were completed republicans controlled congress and would not ratify US participation in the ITO so it died. Who knows if the ITO would have become a reality if FDR had not died in office.

GATT was what created in the FDR/Truman era to promote multilateral control of trade. It was meant to be temporary until the ITO came into force but became permanent when the ITO was rejected by republicans. FDR did not want to see a return to the high tariffs and limited trade of the republican administrations that preceded him. Truman shared his commitment.

FDR created a strong economy and middle class not by going after foreigners and trading with them, but by going after our own 1%. He raised taxes on them, empowered unions, created and strengthened the safety net and regulated the way that banks and corporations did business. He did not blame other countries for our problems. In fact, he increased trade soon after taking office then set up the beginnings of the international trading system that exists today.

That started in the 1960s. Ask a steelworker.

So truthfully, your take on NAFTA--which I've seen numerous times before, too--is unsurprising.

because your free trade schtick ain't working.

Median wages went up after NAFTA. Ag did very well, as did many manufacturing sectors (textiles lost big time, yes, but that had been going on for a while). The 1990s were a great time economically (fast food places in rural VA were starting at $14 because of the high employment and wages) until the Bush tax cuts killed the golden goose.

Fair trade is what keeps a capitalist democracy healthy.