Manufacturing jobs are disappearing - blame NAFTA except it isn't really because of NAFTA.  For one thing where are most of our goods manufactured in Mexico?  Canada?  No?  They are manufactured in China because labor is even cheaper there than it is in Mexico.  There was a time when people in this country made a choice to buy the cheaper foreign made item over a more expensive American made item.  There are consequences to these decisions.  Now we very seldom have a choice to buy American because very little is actually made here. 

I know that it's human nature to want to find someone, anyone to blame for factories closing and job loss but let's look at the big picture and not just pick the easy target.   We have also lost manufacturing jobs because we have also become more effecient at making things.  Should we go back to the old days of more intensive manual labor just so there can be more manufacturing jobs?  I guess some would think so. 

As a whole I think that free trade is a good thing.  I think it makes more sense to trade with our neighbors and build their economies than to build China's economy.  There have been good and bad things that have come from NAFTA but no "giant sucking sound" as Ross Perot predicted.  The Mexican farmers have a hard time competing with American farmers with corn but they are doing fabulous with avocado's.  It's all a trade off.