ABSTRACT

Looming over the Edsel Ford Freeway near the General Motors Corporation headquarters, a billboard recently proclaimed one of the many benefits vaunted by supporters of the North American Free Trade Agreement: 15,000 new auto-related jobs in the United States in the first year. Union leaders were not impressed recently when the Ford Motor Company announced that it would shift production of some vehicles among its American, Canadian and Mexican plants as a result of the trade agreement, recalling 300 workers in Mexico and creating 550 new jobs north of the border. All told, Ford said, the move could lead to 6,000 new auto-related jobs. But those jobs, Ford said, would be created in the United States and Canada. Now that the auto makers are in that box, Mr. Bieber clearly relishes keeping them there, insisting that they sell all 60,000 and create all 15,000 new jobs.