You cannot have a strong economy with a record trade deficit and record debt.  Period.  Those promoting free trade agreements are destructive.  Destructive.  Every trade agreement has increased our trade deficit.  

StevenPearlstein, Business Editor for the Washington Post, writes of this "Mirage Economy":

While there's an ongoing debate about why the price of oil has doubled over the past year, there is little doubt that the declining dollar is a significant factor. The decline is the result of years of large and growing U.S. trade deficits that should have caused the exchange rate to adjust years ago but didn't because so many of our trading partners in Asia and the Middle East were intent on linking their currencies to the dollar. In the process of maintaining those dollar pegs and reinvesting those surpluses in Treasury bonds and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac securities, they created a surfeit of cheap credit that spawned all those bubbles. 

At best, trade agreements are a distraction.  The distract from the need to rebuild the capability of our economy... the balance of our economy.  We are heavy on financial services (repackaging debt and selling it as assets), government jobs, and service jobs.  We are hemorhaging agricultural and manufacturing production capability, including high tech and green tech and defense tech and... and... and... .

We need to refocus on rebuilding our internal capability.  That is not isolationist.  It is a correction.  Reclaiming the ability to build national policies that benefit us.  

The world will be better off if we are strong, not weak and failing. 

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