minimum wages, and health and pollution standards, as well asrnU.S. taxes; their products come back to undercut those made inrnfactories that stayed in America and obeyed the laws of thernUnited States.rnThe Japanese are also exploiting NAFTA. Matsushita, Hitachi,rnSony, and Sanyo have assembly plants in Tijuana. Toshiba’srnplant is in Ciudad Juarez. Japanese and Korean companiesrnare building auto plants. This Japanese investment in Mexicornrepresents a shift of capital away from the United States. ThernCEO of the Japanese Chamber of Commerce in Mexico describesrnhow it works: “Japanese investments reaching Mexicorndo not come directly from Japan. It is the United States [subsidiaries],rnthe son, who is investing in Mexico, the grandson, ofrnthe main office.”rnPresident Clinton points with pride to the growth of Americanrnexports to Mexico. But prominent among those exports arernparts for assembly into products for shipment back to the UnitedrnStates and capital equipment for factories being built inrnMexico. Such “exports” destroy American jobs.rnNAFTA must be renegotiated, or America’s new Sun Beltrnwill be south of the Rio Grande, and the consequences will bernsocial and political as well as economic. Export the future ofrnour working young, and those whose dreams have been destroyedrnwill be heard from. America’s merchandise traderndeficit, an all-time record of $191 billion in 1996, is a cancer.rnEither we cut it out, or it will kill America. History teaches thatrnwhen a nation’s manufacturing sector has entered a period ofrnrelative decline, that nation will decline.rnOur forefathers broke all ties with the mother country andrnrisked their lives to achieve the economic independence we arernpiddling away. We need less of the gauzy spirit of globalismrnand more of the patriotic spirit of old Ceorge Meany:rnPractically every country in the world . .. has some typernof restriction, some type of barrier, some type of subsidizationrnfor their own people, that gives their own manufacturersrnand workers an unfair advantage over the Americanrnworker.. .. When have we ever retaliated againstrnthe unfair barriers put up by these other countries whichrngo back many, many years? And if we are to have a tradernwar, if that’s the only answer, I imagine if we had an alloutrntrade war we would do quite well for one simple fact:rnWe have the market. We have the greatest market in thernworld right in this country.rnAmen. Let us emulate our greatest leaders and use our controlrnof that national market to achieve our national aims. After thernRevolution, the War of 1812, the Civil War, and Wodd War I,rntariff revenue helped erase America’s deficits and pay off America’srndebt. The alternative is more years of receding wages andrnrising tempers among American workers until the social fabricrnis torn irreparably, the bonds of patriotism no longer hold, ourrnvitalit}’ vanishes, and our economic divisions manifest themselvesrnin class conflict between hidustrial America and ThirdrnWave America. We have nothing to lose by trying, except thosernpolicies that have put us on the slippery slope to national decline.rnWhat About the WTO?rnThe World Trade Organization was erected on ideas Americanrnpatriots must reject. It subordinates everything to the demandsrnof trade. It exercises a supranational authority in conflict withrnour forefathers’ vision of an America forever sovereign and independent.rnIts dispute-resolution procedures shift to Cenevarndecisions that ought to be made in Washington. And if wernrefuse to abide by the WTO’s edicts, America can be chastisedrnand fined.rnRun by nameless, faceless, foreign bureaucrats, the WTO isrnthe embryonic hade ministry of a world government. There isrnno place for such an institution in a world where free nationsrnnegotiate their tiade agreements in good faith and oversee thernexecution of those agreements themselves. The WTO is arnmonument to the one-world vision of Wilson and FDR. Ourrnwithdrawal —after the required six months’ notice—would bernan unmistakable signal that America is back and that this nationrnis again the independent self-reliant republic which the FoundingrnFathers intended it to be.rnKeeping Capital at HomernIn a 1952 address to the University Club of Milwaukee, Ludwigrnvon Mises declared that the “essence of Keynesianism is itsrncomplete failure to conceive the role that saving and capital accumulationrnplay in the improvement of economic conditions.”rnHe admonished Americans to appreciate the role that capitalrnhad played in creating their unrivaled prosperity:rnThe average standard of living is in this country higherrnthan in any other country of the world, not because thernAmerican statesmen and politicians are superior to thernforeign statesmen and politicians, but because the perheadrnquota of capital invested is in America higher thanrnin other countries. ..rnDo the American voters know that the unprecedentedrnimprovements in their standard of living that the lastrnhundred years brought was the result of the steady rise inrnthe per-head quota of capital invested? Do they realizernthat every measure leading to capital decumulation jeopardizesrntheir prosperity?rnMises, a free trade libertarian, is toasting a century in whichrnthe United States was the most protectionist nation on earth.rnHamilton was right: protectionism went hand-in-hand withrnrecord capital accumulation. A primary reason that America’srngrowth rates have been anemic in recent decades, and our recoveriesrnnot as robust as they once were, is the $2 trillion inrntrade deficits this generation has run up. Too much of the seedrncorn of the American economy is now being exported all overrnthe world. As Sir James Goldsmith warned:rnToday, capital is being transferred to the developingrnworld in massively increasing amounts. In the periodrn1989-1992, the average capital transferred per year tornemerging countries was 116 billion dollars. In 1993, thernfigure was 213 billion dollars and in 1994 it was an estimatedrn227 billion dollars. East Asia leads the field, withrna rise in the annual rate of direct investment betweenrn1984 and 1994 of 1100 percent.rnHow can the United States halt the hemorrhaging of capital?rnFirst, consider how America’s capital goes abroad. There arernseveral primary vehicles for the “decumulation” of Americanrncapital: imports ($2 trillion in trade deficits in 20 years); U.S.rnJULY 1998/17rnrnrn