The Selling of "Free Trade": NAFTA, Washington, and the Subversion of American Democracy

John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine, is an award-winning journalist and author of Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War (California, 1993).

"An illuminating, periodically astounding serial account of how NAFTA was forged, then spun, out of opportunistic backroom alliances between the Bush and Clinton administrations, joined by congressional Republicans and Democrats alike - all of them in close consultation with a star chamber of businessmen and their phalanxes of lobbyists." - John Phillip Santos, San Francisco Chronicle "MacArthur's is the first book to relate the inside story of the Washington battle over NAFTA in a highly readable style. The author painstakingly reconstructs one of the most intense Washington lobbying efforts of all time." - Paul Magnusson, Business Week "A spirited and engrossing case study of low-wage American workers brazenly sacrificed for a corporate-sponsored 'turbo-capitalism.' " - Publishers Weekly "[A] brilliant dissection of the legislative and public relations battles over the North American Free Trade Agreement.... MacArthur is a masterful investigative reporter.... [He turns] the tale of NAFTA and its aftermath into a heartbreaking account of real workers losing real jobs and of the chilling indifference not just of multinational corporations but of political figures who have abandoned Main Street for Wall Street." - The Progressive "The Selling of 'Free Trade' puts a human face on the victims of the NAFTA agreement....MacArthur describes NAFTA, correctly, as not a trade agreement but an investment agreement, one designed to assure the safety of American investment in Mexico rather than to increase exchanges of indigenous Mexican and indigenous American goods." - Lars-Erik Nelson, New York Review of Books "MacArthur's faultless ear and muted irony make The Selling of 'Free Trade' an immensely pleasurable read.... MacArthur makes abundantly clear that one motive lies at the heart of global trade liberalization. It's cheap labor, stupid." - David Mulcahey, Chicago Tribune