LETTER: The realities of ‘free’ trade

Jacob Sullum’s Monday commentary on trade is a perfect example of someone with very little knowledge of how trade really works.

I was a vice president of a privately owned manufacturing business that provided parts to large OEM customers and ultimately had to compete with foreign competitors in Mexico due to NAFTA and in China due to the WTO. My employer was a family-owned business employing 103 hourly workers who were paid an average of $15.00 an hour in addition to health insurance coverage and paid vacation and holidays benefits.

Trying to compete with NAFTA and WTO competitors that paid their employees an average $5.00 a day in Mexico and 75 cents an hour in China with no benefits was, as you can readily see, an impossible task. It was ultimately the reason the family-owned business for three generations went broke and the 103 employees were out of a job.

Many other U.S. small businesses suffered the same result. When the U.S. government finally offered some protections through tariffs and sanctions, these small businesses were able to reopen and/or start up new businesses and help to improve the economy and offer new opportunities to skilled and minimally skilled workers.

Just like Mr. Sullum, too many people in this country see only the cheaper price of goods and not the long-term affect on the American economy and ultimately on the American worker.