For too long, debates over international trade have been dominated by corporate elites and economic ideologues, rather than rooted in the experiences of ordinary Americans. 

The Trade Stories Project allows people who have been affected by policies and institutions like NAFTA and the WTO to share their views on a matter crucial to the global economy. 

This includes displaced workers, farmers, small business owners and immigrants who have been typically excluded from the trade debate.

Mark Wettstein

Ontario, OR

Mark's family has been growing sugar beets and other crops in eastern Oregon for more than 60 years. They've had to abandon some crops due to NAFTA, and are worried about CAFTA's potential long-term impact on their main source of income.

“For a living, I do row crop and few cattle on the side. We have alfalfa, wheat, corn.  We raise about 150 acres of onions and 350 acres of sugar beets.  We’ve been raising sugar beets since 1946...

“In sugar, we can raise sugar beets as cheap as anywhere in the world, but the problem is that you’re not working with a level playing field. When you’ve got some 8-9 year old kid who can go out and harvest that crop with a machete all day long and get paid $2 a day, that’s pretty hard to compete against that kind of wages—and they don’t have the medical. They don’t have to worry about insurance. They don’t have the minimum wage.

"A lot of us in this area who used to raise a lot of potatoes feel like the NAFTA agreement basically ruined that crop here locally because all the Canadian potatoes that were allowed to come in. JR Simplot closed the Hermiston plant and I think they moved it up to Canada."