WASHINGTON — Presidential candidate Ross Perot once famously predicted a "giant sucking sound" as jobs moved from the United States to Mexico if the U.S. passed the North American Free Trade Agreement, better known as NAFTA.
The statement "sort of electrified the world," recalled former Rep. Bill Frenzel, a moderate Republican from Minnesota who at the time was part of a Clinton administration team charged with getting the House and Senate to bless the pact.
Frenzel and his colleagues fought hard and eventually got NAFTA approved, opening the way for other free trade deals throughout the next two decades.
The Economic Club of Minnesota recently honored Frenzel with its newly created "Champion of Free Trade Award" for his relentless advocacy for open markets.
Frenzel sat down recently to discuss why so many people and politicians still fear free trade, including new agreements now being negotiated with Europe and several countries bordering the Pacific Ocean.
Q: How hard was it to get NAFTA passed?
A: Trade unions were very much opposed to it and were preaching that all jobs would move south of the border and that we would have terrible unemployment or reduction in salaries. That was a little hard to overcome.
Free traders in general tend to be economic types who don't make their case very well in the [media] and who think everyone understands as they do the economic effects of these things. The labor unions who have been the chief spokesmen in opposition are more colorful, more persuasive.