How NAFTA Broke American Politics. Since its passage in 1993, the trade agreement has played an outsize role in presidential elections — which now often hinge on the three Rust Belt states it helped to hollow out.

“Hollow out” is a good way to put it. Economists tell us that NAFTA was a net benefit to everyone. They have pretty little charts and graphs to “prove” it. However, those do not take into account much of the actual economic effects, the political follow-on impacts, the foreign policy implications, international competitiveness effects, or the necessity of domestic production and supply chains in the case of war.

Economics, therefore, captures maybe 10-20% of what’s important about trade agreements like NAFTA while lying about it in the name of the plutocrats the entire time. Good work.