Ross Perot in Save Your Job, Save Our Country
On Budget & Economy:
United We Stand America: Focus on economy & debt
The goals of United We Stand America include:- To get our economy moving and put our people back to work.
- To balance the budget.
- To pay off our nation’s debts.
- To build an efficient and cost-effective health care system.
- To make our
neighborhoods and streets safe from crime and violence.
- To create the finest public schools in the world for our children.
- To pass on the American Dream to our children, making whatever fair shared sacrifices are necessary.
Source: Save Your Job, by Ross Perot, p. 0 [X-ref Education]
Jan 1, 1993
On Education:
Create world’s finest public schools
The goals of United We Stand America include:- To get our economy moving and put our people back to work.
- To balance the budget.
- To pay off our nation’s debts.
- To build an efficient and cost-effective health care system.
- To make our
neighborhoods and streets safe from crime and violence.
- To create the finest public schools in the world for our children.
- To pass on the American Dream to our children, making whatever fair shared sacrifices are necessary.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 0
Jan 1, 1993
On Government Reform:
United We Stand America: create government from the people
The purpose of United We Stand America is to give the people a voice. You own United We Stand America. UWSA’s goals include:- To re-create a government that comes from the people-not at the people.
- To reform the federal government at all levels
to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse.
- To have a government where the elected, appointed, and career officials come to serve and not to cash in.
- To get rid of foreign lobbyists.
- To get rid of political action committees.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 0
Jan 1, 1993
On Free Trade:
NAFTA’s main beneficiary: 36 people who own half of Mexico
[When the Mexican media announced NAFTA, they] did not identify the tiny handful of people in Mexico who would gain the most from this trade pact. They are the 36 businessmen who own Mexico’s 39 largest conglomerates.
Collectively, their companies control 54% of Mexico’s Gross National Product. These companies dominate virtually every sector of the Mexican economy of any consequence. When the Mexican government sold off big chunks of Mexico’s state-run companies
in the late 1980s and early 1990s, this tiny handful of people quickly acquired control. In 1993, President Salinas hosted a private dinner for 29 of these Mexican elite. He asked the businessmen to each make a
$25 million political contribution to his party, the PRI. All said that they would contribute. For these men, it would be money well invested because NAFTA would guarantee the advantages that President Salinas had gained for them.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 2
Jan 1, 1993
On Drugs:
Drug traffickers will take advantage of open Mexican border
Mexico is the principal staging area for the shipment of illegal drugs into the US. The NY Times reported that up to 70% of the cocaine consumed in this country is slipped across the US-Mexican border by smugglers working with Colombia’s drug
cartels. Today, much of this drug movement is done by illegal immigrants carrying the contraband across the border. Drugs are also smuggled under the border through tunnels. If NAFTA is enacted, drug smugglers won’t have to go to so much trouble or
expense. They can just transport their illegal goods across the border in trucks, and do so with little fear of being caught. US customs officials are already so overworked that they often have less than five minutes to inspect the cargo in trucks
crossing the border from Mexico. This is an open invitation to smuggle. Colombian and Mexican drug traffickers are accepting the invitation. These dealers have bought factories and trucking companies that they can use as fronts for smuggling operations.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 6-7
Jan 1, 1993
On Technology:
NAFTA will hurt US telecommunications companies
NAFTA favors Mexican investors in the communications sector. Mexican investors can hold 100% ownership of US cable television systems or companies that provide cable TV services in the US. Under NAFTA, however, US investors in Mexico can only own,
directly or indirectly, up to 49% of similar enterprises. What’s more, only Mexican citizens are permitted to operate a cable TV system in Mexico. Americans wanting to invest in Mexico’s cable TV industry need a well-connected Mexican partner.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 8
Jan 1, 1993
On Free Trade:
NAFTA is good for investors & bad for jobs
NAFTA is really less about trade than it is about investment. Its principal goal is to protect US companies and investors operating in Mexico. The text of the agreement is contained in two volumes covering more than 1,100 pages.
The text is mind-numbingly dull. Large portions of it are written in the type of obscure legal terms found on the back of an insurance policy. Buried in the fine print are provisions that will give away American jobs and radically reduce the sovereignty
of the US. Ultimately, NAFTA is not a trade agreement but an investment agreement. NAFTA’s principal goal is to protect the investment of US companies that build factories in Mexico.
This is accomplished by reducing the risk of nationalization, by permitting the return of profits to US businesses, and by allowing unlimited access to the American markets for goods produced in Mexico.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. i & 11
Jan 1, 1993
On Free Trade:
Mexicans are good; NAFTA is not
Mexico is our neighbor, its people are good, and we want them to prosper. But NAFTA is not the way. The present deal must be scrapped and negotiators put to work to develop a long-term economic relationship between Mexico, Canada, and the US that is in
our mutual interest. If the administration pursues its plan to have NAFTA in place by the end of 1993, then American voters must take action. If they agree that NAFTA should be rejected, they must contact their representatives and stop it.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. iii
Jan 1, 1993
On Jobs:
US farmers & ranchers will lose out to Mexico & Canada
Under NAFTA, only Mexicans can own land that is used for agricultural production in Mexico. Also, NAFTA allows Canadian wheat producers to keep the price and marketing advantages over US producers that were negotiated in the 1988 Canadian Free Trade
Agreement. In wheat markets, just a small price advantage makes a big difference in sales. The US citrus industry will also suffer under NAFTA. The US must immediately cut its tariffs on the import of frozen concentrated citrus from Mexico in half. In
contrast, Mexico only has to phase out its 20% duty on imports of US citrus over an extended period of time. Florida’s citrus industry will be devastated.
NAFTA also exempts Mexico from the US Meat Import Act, while giving Mexico unrestricted access
to US and Canadian feed grains. The result will be a massive shift of the US beef industry to Mexico as investors rush to take advantage of cheap wages, low safety standards, and lax sanitation practices. As a result, more American jobs will be lost.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 10-11
Jan 1, 1993
On Jobs:
NAFTA’s beneficiaries: US companies that move to Mexico
Does anyone from the US benefit from NAFTA? Yes, the owners of labor intensive companies that move their factories to Mexico. They can save a minimum of $10,000 for every job they move from the US to Mexico. In the process, they can avoid the US
environmental, health, and safety regulations. Indeed, the job shift is already happening. Today, more than 1,300 US companies are operating more than 2,200 factories in Mexico. They employ more than 500,000 Mexican workers. Most of these jobs were
once held by American workers.
Today, thousands more US companies are being urged to move their factories to Mexico by the Mexican government, by banks that want a foothold in Mexico, and by junk bond dealers. If NAFTA passes, it will remove any final
doubts for those companies.
A person can only wonder why and how a trade agreement so harmful to US interests was negotiated, and whose interest was foremost in the minds of the US negotiating team.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 12
Jan 1, 1993
On Free Trade:
Fast Track makes more secrecy and less public input
The 1991 “fast track” legislation gave Pres. Bush the authority to negotiate NAFTA in complete secrecy and without the participation of either Congress or the US public. The term “fast track” refers to a process whereby Congress turns over to the
President its authority to regulate foreign commerce-a power granted to Congress in the Constitution. “Fast track” did not allow a Senate filibuster. For the Senate to forgo its right to filibuster is unusual. Since 1960, the Senate has approved or
ratified 25 treaties, conventions, and agreements-including nuclear nonproliferation treaties-all without “fast track.”
Now. Pres. Clinton gets to decide if or when to submit NAFTA to Congress. The irony is that the many new members of Congress elected
in 1992 who opposed NAFTA are still bound by the limited-debate, no-filibuster, up-or-down vote restrictions imposed by the “fast track” legislation in 1991. Of course, that is why the NAFA advocates wanted “fast track.”
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 14-6
Jan 1, 1993
On Homeland Security:
Manufacturing industry needed for self-defense
Manufacturing is vitally important for this reason: without the ability to manufacture, the US cannot defend itself. Manufacturing is important because it provides the greatest number of high-paying US jobs. These are the types of jobs that US workers
need if they are to buy a house, build a retirement nest egg, and create a better future for themselves. It is just plain wrong to think that “progress” as a nation requires shifting from a manufacturing economy to a service economy.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 28-9
Jan 1, 1993
On Jobs:
US is becoming a nation of hamburger flippers
The US is swapping good manufacturing jobs for lower paying service jobs. For instance, the University of South Carolina reports that between 1978 and 1990 South Carolina lost more than 58,000 manufacturing jobs. At the same time, the biggest job gains
in South Carolina were in restaurants, bars, and grocery stores-more than 72,000 service jobs were created in such establishments. It’s a bad tradeoff. The lost manufacturing jobs paid an average of $279 per week. The replacement service jobs pay only
$127 a week-less than half as much. The result: the living standards of working men and women are declining, and America is becoming a nation of hamburger-flippers. How can Congress consider NAFTA, which will destroy urban jobs, at the same time that
it is considering the Clinton Administration’s urban empowerment program, which will try to create urban jobs by spending $800 million a year of taxpayers’ money over the next 5 years to provide incentives for businesses to locate in urban areas?
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 35
Jan 1, 1993
On Jobs:
Jobs lost to NAFTA are not replaced at same pay
In study after study, the US Department of Labor has found that displaced workers have an increasingly difficult time finding new jobs. The Labor Department reports that:- The lower the skill of the displaced workers, the less likely they are to be
re-employed ever.
- Blacks and Hispanics are less likely to find new jobs than whites.
- Women are less likely than men to find new jobs and more likely to drop out of the work force.
Of every 100 American workers who lost their jobs in the
1980s, at least 61 had not reached the same standard of living they had before losing their job. The hard fact of life is that a majority of the American workers who will be thrown out of work if NAFTA is passed
will have to take less pay and fewer benefits to get another job-and that’s if they can find someone willing to hire them.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 37
Jan 1, 1993
On Free Trade:
NAFTA will cause a giant sucking sound as jobs go south
A Giant Sucking Sound: One million Mexicans enter the work force each year. They need jobs. To get those jobs, President Salinas and his government have deliberately kept wages down to attract foreign investment. Mexico has vastly expanded its
vocational training programs to improve worker skill levels. The Mexican government also offers low-cost loans and tax benefits to companies that build factories in Mexico. Mexico’s national development strategy is reminiscent of strategies
used by Japan, Korea, and Taiwan a generation ago. Like the strategies used by those countries, Mexico’s strategy depends on taking jobs from the US.
The New York Times reports that the skills of Mexican workers already match the skills of
70% of the labor force in the US. Once properly trained, Mexican workers’ productivity and work quality equals that of anyone, anywhere in the world.
Mexico keeps its wages low to attract foreign investment. This strategy has worked.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 41-2 & 47
Jan 1, 1993
On Jobs:
Mexican unions are beholden to one-party government
In theory, Mexican unions could stop the exploitation of the workers they represent. Certainly, the Mexican Constitution gives workers the right to organize their own unions and the right to strike. The catch is this: unions must be certified by the
Mexican government. The government only recognizes unions affiliated with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has governed Mexico under one-party rule for more than 60 years. Unions that are not registered with the government cannot exist.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 45
Jan 1, 1993
On Environment:
Mexico provides escape from US environmental regulations
Besides low wages, another attraction for companies to relocate to Mexico is the loose enforcement of its health, safety, and environmental standards. Mexico provides US companies an escape hatch from increasingly expensive US regulations.
For instance, the US General Accounting Office reported to Congress in 1992 that the Mexican government has neither the staff, funds, nor systems it needs to identify the new companies locating there, let alone monitor and enforce its environmental laws.
A survey of six US plants operating in Mexico found that all the plants were operating without the required environmental licenses. This lack of government enforcement is neither unique nor extreme in Mexico.
The futility of he NAFTA side agreements [on labor and environmental standards] is obvious: Mexico already has laws it does not enforce. Why should new environmental regulations assure future compliance?
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 47
Jan 1, 1993
On Free Trade:
Maquiladoras just steal jobs; it’s not really “trade”
To encourage US companies to operate in Mexico, the US government subsidizes companies in Mexico that ship products to the US by removing import fees. These factories are known as “maquiladoras.” US multinationals created almost as many new
manufacturing jobs in Mexico under the Maquiladora Program between 1986 and 1990 as they created in the US-92,000 jobs versus 97,000 jobs. Most of the goods produced in the maquiladoras are shipped into the US market. Consequently, most of the so-called
trade between the US and Mexico is not trade as trade is commonly understood. Rather, it is primarily US companies shipping their own machinery, components, and raw materials across the border into their Mexican factories and then shipping their finished
or semi-finished goods back over the border into the US.
Altogether, more than half of the US “exports” to Mexico never entered Mexico’s domestic market-[actual trade was] less than $8 billion of the $41 billion of US exports [claimed] in 1992.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 48-50
Jan 1, 1993
On Civil Rights:
Calling NAFTA opponents “racist” is a smear tactic
[The premier myth used by NAFTA proponents is that] NAFTA critics are racists. The quickest way to discredit a critic, discount an argument, or intimidate an opponent in US politics is to label that person a “racist.” It happens time and again because it
works. Once a prominent official makes the smear, it is repeated by the media, and the victims are then forced to prove they are not bigots. The accusers are rarely criticized by the media. The “racist” card is already being played by the pro-NAFTA
advocates. High-level administration officials are telling reporters in “off the record” interviews that NAFTA opponents are racists. Several Members of Congress are making similar slurs in public. It is, of course, all planned and coordinated.
Politicians who claim otherwise should be asked to explain such demagoguery to their constituents.
The fact that American workers don’t want their jobs moved to Mexico is not “racist.”
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 65-6
Jan 1, 1993
On Immigration:
NAFTA will encourage illegal immigration
[It is a myth that] NAFTA will reduce illegal immigration. As manufacturing in northern Mexico expands, hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers will be drawn north. They will quickly find that wages in the Mexican maquiladora plants cannot compete
with wages anywhere in the US. Out of economic necessity, many of these mobile workers will consider illegally immigrating into the US. In short, NAFTA has the potential to increase illegal immigration, not decrease it.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 72
Jan 1, 1993
On Foreign Policy:
NAFTA yields US sovereignty to international organizations
NAFTA is a very, very broad commitment on the part of the US. Not only will the US be bound to change its federal laws that conflict with NAFTA, but it will also make a commitment to see that any state laws that conflict with NAFTA are changed. Many
existing laws and regulations at all levels of government will be superseded by NAFTA. Equally important, NAFTA gives Mexico and Canada the right to challenge the legality of our federal, state, and local laws as illegal trade barriers. Any challenge
will be considered in secret by a panel of international trade bureaucrats. There is no appeal process involving the US justice system. The third branch of US government, the judiciary, and the American right to due process have been negotiated away.
If the US loses a decision before this board of international arbitrators, the US is obligated to change its laws or pay a penalty to the other nations. The impact of this provision on US sovereignty is neither trivial nor far-fetched.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, p. 77-8
Jan 1, 1993
On Free Trade:
NAFTA allows prison-made Chinese textiles into US via Mexico
The US apparel market is further opened under NAFTA to producers operating out of Mexico. An exception is that a substantial portion of the apparel made in Mexican factories must use fabric manufactured in North America. The intent is to protect US and
Canadian textile jobs. However, Chinese and other foreign textile makers have already figured a way around this provision by building their own factories in Mexico. NAFTA establishes rules that deny preferential treatment for goods produced
outside of North America. The way for a Japanese or European company to get preferential treatment, of course, is to build a factory in Mexico. US textile makers who want to be competitive will be forced to move jobs to Mexico or go out of business.
Assume the US could put enough customs agents along the border to inspect every item exported from Mexico to the US. Are those customs agents going to be able to tell the difference between a shirt made by prison labor in China and a shirt made in Mexico
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, p. 79-81
Jan 1, 1993
On Health Care:
NAFTA is backdoor deregulation; lowers FDA standards
Perhaps the greatest dangers from NAFTA are contained in the food hygiene standards. NAFTA’s lax standards undermine existing US health and environmental standards. Rather than adopt the highest possible food hygiene levels, NAFTA adopts standards
developed by something called Codex. The problem with Codex, a United Nations organization, is that they rely heavily upon the expertise of executives from the very industries that are to be regulated.
A comparison of the Codex standards with
standards of the FDA reveals the recklessness of US negotiators in adopting those standards. For example, the Codex allows ten times more DDT on carrots than the FDA.
The Codex is a quick and easy way to get around US hygiene standards. [Unethical
companies will] use the exceptions provided by the trade agreement to enter the US market with foods that would never meet the US hygiene standards. NAFTA is a back-door deregulation of US health and environmental standards.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, p. 82-3
Jan 1, 1993
On Immigration:
NAFTA lets Mexican professionals work in the US legally
Today, foreign professional workers can enter the US labor market, but only “temporarily” & only if an employer gets a certification that a qualified US worker cannot be found. Also, the existing US immigration laws place a numerical limit on the number
of temporary workers. Put another way, American workers have priority for American jobs. NAFA radically alters this entire concept. Under NAFTA, Mexican and Canadian workers in 63 designated categories may be hired in the US, even if qualified
American workers are available.
Under NAFTA, Mexican and Canadian entrepreneurs will be able to provide US drug stores with pharmacists, hotels with managers, and so on. As a result, hundreds of thousands of professional American workers are going
to be put under intense pressure to cut their wages and benefits. [Lower-skilled workers] are going to lose their jobs to low-paid foreign contract workers. While no one was watching, US NAFTA negotiators radically revised the nation’s immigration laws.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, p. 90-2
Jan 1, 1993
On Free Trade:
Ten principles of a good trade agreement with Mexico
At a minimum, a new round of trade negotiations with Mexico should include the following ten principles: - A coherent, long-term US trade strategy
- Negotiate with complete integrity: prohibiting all US officials from ever working as foreign
lobbyists after they leave office
- Do not violate national sovereignty
- Uphold the legal rights of US citizens: allow judicial review for disputes by American citizens
- Increase jobs and wages for American workers
- Increase jobs and wages for
Mexican workers: allow unions & other labor safety rights
- Do not make Mexico an export platform into the US: require and enforce strict rules of origin
- Protect the health and safety of all parties: like US FDA standards
- Protect the environment:
only allow imports that meet US standards
- The agreement must be enforced: including well-trained customs agents and the tools and technology to do their job.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, p.102-9
Jan 1, 1993
On Free Trade:
Long-term US trade strategy: focus on debt & jobs
Any trade deals with Mexico, or any other nation, must be considered in the context of how they fit into the long-term US trade strategy, reflecting these realities: - The Cold War is over
- The US does not have enough good jobs
- The US is
$4 trillion dollars in debt and must not do anything to damage its tax base
- Every other nation plays by a different set of rules.
The questions, therefore, are: how does the US expand trade with other nations in a way that neither punishes the
other nations for their successes nor destroys jobs or industries in America? How do individual agreement, such as a new NAFTA, fit into the overall US trade strategy? And most important, how can trade be used to create more and better jobs in the US?
As a nation, the danger of failing to think strategically about trade is measured by the fact that the US trade deficit in 1993 will be close to $100 billion. A trade deficit of this magnitude means a loss of 1.9 to 2 million US jobs.
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, p.103-4
Jan 1, 1993
Page last updated: Feb 22, 2019