Until 1993, the United States of America was the world’s economic king, and our people enjoyed the highest standard of living in recorded history. But NAFTA/GATT changed all that by virtually removing all trade protections that ensured our general prosperity.
Compared to the United States, labor costs in China, Indonesia and similar nations were substantially lower than what U.S. workers earned. NAFTA/GATT allowed our corporations and U.S. entrepreneurs to move their manufacturing technology overseas and take advantage of the reduced costs of doing business.
Clinton’s bill allowed companies to avoid all U.S. payroll taxes, worker’s compensation costs and environmental regulations and hurdles. You no longer have to deal with unions and provide employee benefits like health insurance and retirement plans. You get to manufacture in China, Indonesia and similar foreign nations to your heart’s content, and you still get to sell your products to the U.S. consumer.
Americans were blind-sided and left behind due to this Clinton bill, and the immediate effect of NAFTA/GATT was for around five million people who had high-paying, family wage paying manufacturing jobs to lose them to low-wage workers overseas.
For Americans in general, the solution to this impending disaster is to reverse and cancel NAFTA/GATT immediately, restore our tariff and trade restrictions and set a rule that those manufacturers who want to sell to Americans had better plan on moving back to manufacture in America. The United States is still the most powerful consumer force in the world, so the incentive for cooperation is there.
Next, our returning manufacturers would get first dibs on raw materials produced in America, no matter what the Chinese would be willing to pay. That happens to be China’s Achilles Heel, and it explains why our exports to China are largely raw commodities like wood, metals, chemicals, etc. China, as big as it is, doesn’t have raw commodities to manufacture into desirable goods like the United States does, and if they don’t have the raw materials, they can’t 
This once proud land of opportunity is no more due to the democrats. Hillary Clinton a presidential hopeful for 2016 is married to the former president Clinton who signed NAFTA/GATT into law, so I wouldn’t look in her direction for the solution.
If nothing is done to correct this impending nightmare, just about every American family will suffer in one way or another, and most will find the experience immediately catastrophic, followed by a permanent reduction of living standard that cannot be recovered from in theirs, or even their children’s lifetimes.
