Rob - I'm all for Free Trade - if a country can make a superior product at a lower price, I figure they deserve to reap the rewards from that... survival of the fittest. That being said, I don't have a problem with NAFTA, per se... if the Mexicans can build Fords of the same quality as workers in Detroit do, but at a more competitive price, well, more power to'em - they deserve the right to work too, don't they?

My problem with NAFTA isn't so much with Mexico - with you guys in the way, we don't get to do a whole lot of direct trade with them - the Canada-Mexico trade is pretty much negligible for us. My problem is with the US attitude... it seems like you're all for Free Trade down there, but only so long as the playing field favors US industry - the moment your trading partner starts to gain an competitive advantage through their own hard work and sacrifice, the US seems all too willing to slap on countervailing duties to slap them down. How fair is that?

Take the Softwood Lumber dispute going on between the US and Canada right now, for instance. Canadian softwood producers have been investing heavily in bringing their mills up to date... their American competitors have stuck to their old, inefficient mills. So as the Canadian producers started gaining market share, the American producers cried foul and convinced the Bush Administration to slap on punitive duties in 2001. Canada responded by suing the US under the NAFTA mechanisms and has won ruling after ruling... and yet the US still refuses to abide by the decisions.

Instead of hiding behind the courts and then refusing to abide by their rulings, wouldn't the US industry have been better off to take their lumps and deal with the Canadian competitive advantage by investing in their own plant? You all talk about free market economics down there, but when push comes to shove, you don't seem to practice it all that well.