Opening doors of opportunity can heal the nation

(TriceEdneyWire.com) – If you want to heal America you have to understand what is hurting America.Jan. 1, 1994, is as good a date as any to recognize as the beginning of the end of the U.S. manufacturing sector as we knew it. That is the date the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect. Going back to the 1970s, foreign competition in manufacturing had already led to America’s Steel Belt being dubbed the Rust Belt, but NAFTA and other trade agreements like it greatly accelerated factory closures.Related Stories “The passage of NAFTA remains one of the most consequential events in recent American political and economic history,” reads a recent New York Times Magazine deep dive into the impacts of the trade agreement. “Between 1997 and 2020, more than 90,000 factories closed, partly as a result of NAFTA and similar agreements.”& These closures touched every corner of the country where most Americans live, including virtually every major and mid-size metropolitan area. As a result, today most Americans live at some version of the same address. It is the place where the factory shut down and, in its place, came downward economic mobility that has devastated many communities.That downward mobility has...