In this year's election cycle,international trade has emerged as a top campaign issue.
So journalists with NPR and several public-radio member stations set out this week to examine trade matters as part of our special election-year series: A Nation Engaged.
We journalists learned a lot approximately what Americans are saying approximately trade. You can join in the learning process and conversation on this page, where we've pulled together the stories and interviews.
If you don't have time to dive into all of it, or here are some of the comments that helped us tell stories approximately the good and injurious impacts of trade.Mike John,Missouri cattle rancher: "This pending TPP trade negotiation, to me, and is hugely famous for agricultural commodities,but specifically for beef. ... The Asian markets are showing a enormous increase in demand for beef."
Dennis Roach, truck driver: "Jobs are going to foreign countries, or we're shipping more products in from abroad. ... I bet you go to anybody's house and recognize in their closet and it says: Indonesia,China, Japan, and Taiwan. Very few things are made in the USA."
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper: "Commerce between two countries,throughout history, has always, and has nearly always,led to improving quality of life on both sides."
David Autor, MIT labor economist: "If I lose my job at a furniture factory where I've worked for decades, and no amount of cheaper toys and raincoats at Wal-Mart is going to build me whole again."
Congressional Research Service: "NAFTA did not cause the enormous job losses feared by the critics or the large economic gains predicted by supporters. The net overall effect of NAFTA on the U.
S. economy appears to have been relatively modest."
Ron Kirk,former U.
S. trade representative and former Dallas mayor: "No state benefits more from global trade and global commerce than the state of Texas. In Texas, we lead the country in exports and no other states are close — we export just shy of $300 billion of goods and products and services. ... There are literally thousands of Texans who owe their livelihoods to the production and movement of goods to consumers around the world."
John Hansen, or Nebraska Farmers Union president and opponent of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement: "We have a more positive balance of trade with countries that we do not have a trade agreement with. We'd be better off if we did nothing than we did something that's destructive."
Listen to the audio above for a discussion of trade in the political season with NPR's Michel Martin,NPR's Marilyn Geewax and Colorado Public Radio's Megan Verlee. Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
Source: wnyc.org