In a subscription-only article from the Financial Times, CHRISTOPHER SWANN writes of Nafta & US jobs:

While jobs have been lost in some sectors, they say the agreement's overall impact has been beneficial. As Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics think-tank in Washington, points out: "The problem for advocates of the pact is that the losers from free trade are easy to identify and have faces, whereas those who have benefited are invisible and unaware they have been helped. The costs are highly concentrated and the gains are larger but diverse."

Because the benefits of free trade are delivered by countries focusing on areas in which they have a comparative advantage, some gross job losses from free trade are inevitable. If workers are able to move smoothly from declining to growing sectors, however, this should be more than offset by net job creation elsewhere.

"Since the US is widely seen as the world's great example of a flexible labour market, it might be expected to be a beneficiary from free trade," says Bruce Kasman, head of economic research at JP Morgan...

If some Americans have seen their jobs disappear it is because they have been undercut on price, says Mr Hufbauer.

"This means cheaper goods, which raises the spending power of everyone else and this should be positive for employment," he says. "It makes no sense for the US to be producing goods that can be produced elsewhere more cheaply."