NAFTA comes up in almost every political debate but does anyone realize how many other trade agreements have been signed that are more important?  The USA- China WTO is among one of the more important.  With all the lead toy incidents the world should now know the real problem agreement separates the USA by an ocean not a river.

 

I am a salesman dealing in wholesale distrubution of logo items for companies that sell direct to businesses.   These companies are called distributors and there are almost thirty thousand of them in the USA.  Unforunate for many of them is their diehard devotion to keeping things they way they have been for decades with a supplier distributor relationship.   The suppliers no longer make anything it is all imported from source factories in the Far East.  Each hop along the way adds to the cost when in reality the relationship could now cut out the middlemen.   Some of the larger distributors like the old Nelson Marketing are going direct and putting the profit in their pockets.  Some other firms have announced plans to offer products direct soon.  One of my customers has grown by focusing on a brand or two like Leeds totes. But there is a cost as this firm is giving away shipping and stamp charges to make up for the pricing structures achieved by those going direct.   They would be better served by cutting out the middlemen entirely and doing their own importing exporting.   The problem these companies have is maintaining quality because as we found from the lead paint contamination quality standards are not fantastic.   Many of these same firms report that green items are flying off the shelves which has irony as most of these green items are made overseas and shipped at great carbon costs across vast oceans. 

 

The short story is NAFTA is the wrong focus point we need to nail down future trade agreements with the Far East and put in place agreements and standards.   With the technology now advancing a whole new wave of smaller firms will go overseas and that will introduce another whole set of potential issues.