====== FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ======

America First Party
1630 A 30th Street #111
Boulder, Colorado 80301
http://www.AmericaFirstParty.org

Thursday, February 15, 2007

Record Trade Gap Presages Future Poverty
and the Annihilation of the Middle Class

Boulder, CO - A fifth consecutive record annual trade deficit was announced this week, with the trade gap reaching an incredible $763 billion for 2006. The ballooning trade deficit highlights the dangerous flight of money capital and industrial capability overseas, a real hemorrhaging of the economic life of the nation. These dire statistics mean that we are purchasing more and more from overseas, and manufacturing less and less domestically. The resulting downward pressure on the dollar jeopardizes our nation's purchasing power.

The resulting hollowing-out of domestic industries and loss of jobs prefigures a future of poverty for the present middle class, while future money managers and wealthy rentiers will be able to live off interest from servicing public and private debt, now at about 300% of the GDP. As jobs flee, people are turning to credit. Total debt now exceeds its peak during the great depression. But as in past declining empires, financial services are booming, generating more revenues than the manufacturing sector.

National Chairman Jonathan Hill stated, "The trade gap and its negative consequences result from failure to protect the strategic and domestic national interest with tariffs. The result is that we are jeopardizing our independence as a nation, both economically and politically."

National Secretary John Hey stated, "The crux of the problem is that Congress has delegated to the WTO and NAFTA trade regime one of its crucial and exclusive constitutional powers -- the regulation of trade. Our trade policy with over 140 nations is controlled by the WTO, where the U.S. has only one of 140+ votes in matters critical to the livelihood of 300 million Americans. Congressmen who support this policy are in blatant violation of the obligations of their oath of office, probably deliberately so."

The America First Party calls for an end to U.S. participation in NAFTA and the WTO, and for revenue tariffs on all foreign-made goods sold in the United States to achieve balanced trade and to replace the income tax. This will not only protect our industries, but help reduce the precarious debt burden of the American people.

Contacts:
Jonathan Hill, National Chairman, 1-866-SOS-USA1, ext. 4
John Schweingrouber, Press Secretary, 1-866-SOS-USA1, ext. 2

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