This election has spawned a revival of protectionist rhetoric as special interests and their political handmaidens argue that cutting off foreign trade would somehow export our economic problems to other nations.
History, of course, shows the falsity of such demagoguery. After the stock market crash of 1929, the Smoot-Hawley tariff was passed in 1930, raising tariffs on more than 20,000 imported goods to record levels. Other countries retaliated, and American exports and imports plunged by more than half, lengthening and deepening the Great Depression of the 1930s.
Alas, political memories are short, and this year, old protectionist interests have renewed their assault on the landmark North American Free Trade Act. It’s thus timely that a new report by Gil Cisneros and Joe Kiely of the Chamber of the Americas tallies that Colorado is now exporting $7.9 billion in goods and services beyond U.S. borders.
More than 35 percent of all exports, $2.8 billion, went to Mexico and Canada — America’s partners in NAFTA. Canada remains Colorado’s top trading partner.
One factor working to help build jobs in Colorado is the Ports-to- Plains Trade Corridor running from Mexico through west Texas, New Mexico, Colorado and Oklahoma, and ultimately on into Canada and the Pacific Northwest.
In Colorado, the corridor helps keep trucks off crowded Interstate 25. It follows U.S. 287 from Oklahoma through Lamar and Eads to Limon before taking I-70 to Denver. The corridor eventually will follow Colorado 71 north of Limon through Brush to Scottsbluff, Neb., before heading on to Canada and the Pacific Northwest.
Kiely, the town administrator of Limon who also serves as vice president of the Ports-to-Plains Trade Corridor Coalition, said the corridor is already helping bring jobs to eastern Colorado, building a transportation backbone that can benefit communities within 100 miles of the route much as the east-west routes of the interstate system do.
Besides spurring Colorado exports to Canada and Mexico, the trade corridor also strengthens Colorado’s links to the 38.5 million residents in the nine- state, 2,333-mile Great Plains corridor.
Working together, the Great Plains International Trade Corridor — consisting of Ports-to-Plains and two other regional routes, the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway from Rapid City, S.D., to the Canadian border and the Heartland Expressway from Rapid City to Denver — connects North America’s agricultural and energy heartland to Colorado and world markets.
Colorado ships more than $6 billion worth of goods to the eight other Great Plains states, according to Cisneros.
Think of that the next time you hear politicians attack NAFTA. Their demagoguery could cost you your job.
