Non-sequitars from the Minnesota Fair Trade Coalition:

The damage of the NAFTA-WTO model hits all of us, not workers whose job was sent to a low-wage nation: U.S. productivity jumped 80% and GDP rose over 160% since Fast Track was established, but U.S. workers’ wages rose less than 10%! The average worker’s hourly wage has only gone up a nickel from 1973 to 2006! Since 2001, the U.S. economy grew 15% and productivity 16%, while wages have only gone up one percent.

And trade explains all of those facts, huh?

Before Fast Track, the U.S. enjoyed balanced trade. In every year but one since we have had deficits. NAFTA and WTO boosters said the deals would fix the deficit. Instead NAFTA turned our trade surplus with Mexico into a massive deficit and a small deficit with Canada jumped. And everyone knows our China trade deficit exploded with that nation’s entry into WTO.

And everyone knows that the United States didn’t make many new trade concessions to China when it joined the WTO, so it’s strange to imply that the trade deficit is a function of China’s WTO membership rather than China’s economic growth and global integration.

If you are able to distinguish between correlation and causation, this press release falls apart quickly.