Free trade agreements are more harmful than helpful

To conclude, I'd just like to restate my main points:Lost jobs and deficitFree trade agreements like NAFTA and TPP cause devastating damage to the American middle class. Through deficits with Mexico alone we've lost nearly 700,000 high-skilled manufacturing jobs, and that number rises to 2.7 million when looking at the U.S.-China free trade agreement. It is important to keep in mind that these are net jobs lost, meaning that all jobs gained are taken into account as well. Either way you look at it, free trade agreements have a negative impact on the manufacturing sector, causing companies to outsource millions of decent paying American jobs. Impact on the middle classFree trade has lead to the decline of U.S. wages and an increase in income inequality. The massive outsourcing of jobs we've seen under these agreements and the freedom they have given to the biggest companies allows them to continue growing in power, seemingly endlessly. During the past few decades, we've seen the middle class dissapear, and free trade has been a huge contributor. "Most economists now acknowledge that...trade is responsible for about 40% of the explainable share of increased income inequality." [1] Restricited consumer freedomWhile the increase in importing and overall wider availability of goods is a benefit of free trade, this does not negate some of the very harmful terms present in many of our free trade agreements. Under them, consumer freedom has actually been reduced. Free trade threatens the availablity of less expensive, generic medications [3]Free trade lowers the safety standards of imported food products [4]Free trade limits the authority of local governments to restrict permits to extraction and export of liquid nature gas to partner countries, which could lead to an increase in fracking [6]Products with "fair trade," "animal-friendly," and "GMO-free" labels are considered trade barriers under free trade and restrict the freedom of the consumer [7]"Buy local" policies are outlawed under the TPP and additionally restrict the freedom of the consumer [8]Government officials can be SUED if they attempt to prefer local products over imports [9]Disregard for the environment and worker safety - unfair competetionEnvironmental policies in many free trade agreements are seen as "trade barriers," which means the United States has in essence allowed foreign countries to compete with them on a level in which they've been allowed to use sweat shop workers and environmentally dangerous practices to advance their industry. "Neither CAFTA nor the FTAA require member countries to adopt internationally recognized standards for environmental protection. Nor does either agreement ensure that member countries don’t lower or waive their existing environmental laws in an effort to attract investment. What’s more, rules in CAFTA and the FTAA would actually prohibit member countries from enacting many new environmental regulations, allowing those regulations to be challenged as 'barriers to trade.'" [10] In essence, this would allow foreign countries to not play by the same rules we do, breeding unfair competition and encouraging even more companies to outsource jobs to foreign industries.AutarkyI'd like to clarify that in no way am I promoting economic isolation in the form of extreme protectionism, but rather, I'm pointing out the blatant flaws in free trade that negatively impact the American middle class and our environment. Like all things, we must find a middle ground, and I believe that free trade is as much of an extreme as autarky, and we must effectively regulate it in order to give everyone a good deal. So to conclude, free trade is a raw deal for the majority of Americans. Either through a decline in wages, outsourcing of jobs, the steady dissapearance of the middle class, or the restriction placed on the consumer under these agreements, I don't believe that the benifits of free trade outweigh the costs placed on the average American worker. Again I'd like to thank con for the debate, and I'll allow him to make his closing statements as well. http://pastebin.com...