问答题Practice 3　　The new assault on NAFTA rests on a single premise: ex- ports arc good, imports are bad. In economic terms, that’s non- sense: exporting doesn’t benefit Americans at all unless it allows them to consume more, which is what most imports arc

Practice 3　　The new assault on NAFTA rests on a single premise: ex- ports arc good, imports are bad. In economic terms, that’s non- sense: exporting doesn’t benefit Americans at all unless it allows them to consume more, which is what most imports arc for. As a political proposition, though the claim that exports create jobs　　while imports kill them is an easy sell. That’s why the critics fell silent during NAFTA’s first year, 1994, as US plants ran over- time to meet Mexico’s clamor for Coors beer. The collapse of Mexico’s peso last December, though, has devastated Mexico’s economy. Interests rates arc twice last year’s level, leaving mil- lions of middle-class families swamped by car loans and credit- card bills. Consumer spending has dropped by nearly a fifth, and the weak pesos means US-produced goods cost twice what they used to. Last year’s $ 8.9 billion US trade surplus with Mexico turned into a $ 3 billion deficit in the first half of 1995, and NAFTA foes adroitly seized the opening.