america’s increasing involvement with internationalism
TRANSCRIPT
America’s increasing involvement
with internationalism
NAFTA and the WTO
1. Immigrants from countries such as Mexico take jobs away from Americans that need them because they will agree to work for less pay and benefits.
2. Any good business owner would hire the worker that agreed to work for less pay and benefits, rather than the worker that demands more.
Do you agree or disagree?
We’ve seen that the United States was once pretty isolationist…
Initial refusal to enter World War II
Refusal to join League of Nations after World War I
Several key events show the US’s shift to supporting a policy of getting involved with international affairs
But…the US moves away from isolationism to become internationalist.
US joins League of Nations after
WWII
US joins the World Trade Organization
The WTO is a group of nations that meets to encourage more global free trade. It is meant to allow businesses to do business in just about any part of the world without hardly any restrictions against them.
What is the WTO (World Trade Organization)???
Why might it be a good thing?This allows businesses
to make the greatest amount of profit possible by searching the entire GLOBE for the best markets.
If businesses are making money, they should also be hiring workers, and more jobs should become available worldwide.
Why might it be a bad thing? Businesses can more easily take advantage of countries that do
not protect workers’ rights, paying people almost nothing to work in their factories and fields.
In the US, workers can easily lose jobs if businesses decide to send their factories to other countries where labor is much cheaper.
ProsBusinesses can cut
costs and become more profitable
Business profits can increase the number of jobs available worldwide
Businesses take advantage of countries where the government does not protect its citizens
US workers can lose jobs if companies send their factories to foreign countries (a practice known as “offshoring”)
Summary…WTO Pros and Cons
Cons
Let’s say you have a problem with your computer. You call the company’s “help desk” to get them to tell you how to fix it.
An example of offshoring…
The employee you speak to is very helpful, and you fix your computer. You ask her where she is working out of, and she says she is working from India, on the other side of the world!
Offshoring
This person works in India because the computer company has to pay him or her MUCH less money than if they were to pay an American to do the same job.
The company ends up making more money, and they charge you less to buy your computer. However, all of those jobs with this AMERICAN company go to other countries, not to Americans.
Offshoring
JOBS
In 1999 in Seattle, the countries in the WTO met to work on its
free trade agreements. Protestors gathered to violently oppose the mission of the WTO,
which they saw as an organization determined to
harm workers worldwide and make the rich even richer.
NAFTA is an agreement between the countries of the United States, Mexico and Canada that opens up free trade between all three nations.
It is designed to do basically the same things as the WTO…Create free trade so businesses can do
business where they want to and make the most profit possible
It has many of the same criticisms…American companies will send their jobs to
foreign countries!!!Those foreign workers will be getting paid
slave wages!!!
NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement)
Only the rich countries will benefit, and only the extremely wealthy within those rich countries will benefit…
Corporations will hugely expand their global control…
Workers around the world will have an increasingly worse standard of living…
Summary…Major criticisms of the
WTO and of NAFTA
Answer the questions on your guided notes.
NAFTA political cartoons
WTO political cartoons
WTO and NAFTA are free trade agreements that make it easy for corporations to do business in most parts of the world. These come about in the mid-1990s.
Many American corporations have taken advantage of free trade by offshoring their manufacturing jobs. They only need to pay foreign workers a fraction of what they pay American workers.
Review
Impact of World
Trade
Organization
(WTO) and
North American
Free Trade
Agreement
(NAFTA)
Offshoring means fewer jobs for Americans, and it oftentimes means foreign workers are getting paid extremely low wages and working under harsh conditions.
ReviewImpact of World
Trade
Organization
(WTO) and
North American
Free Trade
Agreement
(NAFTA)
Since the late 1800s, many industries and factory jobs had thrived in northeastern
cities.
Manufacturing/factory jobs
A lot of this development occurred during the Industrial Revolution!
After free trade agreements with the WTO and NAFTA, it became much cheaper for these companies to offshore
their manufacturing jobs to other countries.
This meant that a lot of Americans
who used to have factory jobs in the northeast were now
unemployed.
Not only did factory jobs get offshored, but they moved into the southern United States, where there were fewer labor unions and wide availability of Mexican
immigrant labor.
Jobs move south
These two regions, the declining north, and the rising south, came to be known as the Rust Belt
and Sun Belt
Rust BeltNorthern USPUSH factors for
migration (pushing people away)
Sun BeltSouthern USPULL factors for
migration
Sun Belt
Rust Belt
These two regions, the declining north, and the rising south, came to be known as the Rust Belt
and Sun Belt
Rust BeltNorthern USPUSH factors for
migration (pushing people away) Industrial jobs quickly
being offshored or sent south, starting in the 1960s and 70s
People do not like the cold winters, harsh weather
Sun BeltSouthern USPULL factors for
immigration Increasing number of jobs
become available (oil, agriculture, military)
Workers from the north move into the south to get jobs
Mexican immigrants increase population of cheap labor
People attracted to the beautiful weather and mild winters