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.

Rennie Sawade

Seattle, WA

Rennie has worked as a in the I.T. industry for more than two decades.  He is currently a software engineer contractor, active in the Washington Alliance for Technology Workers (WashTech).

“I remember when I was going to college in the ‘80s over there in Michigan, you would hear that manufacturing is going downhill in this country, manufacturing is being outsourced, and we need to adjust by getting into these high-tech jobs…

"Now it just so happened I really liked computers at the time, and I thought, ‘Great.  I’ll get into this programming stuff.’  What was I expecting?  I expected a comfortable lifestyle.  I spent a lot of years in college studying for this… I find it interesting that I’m kind of in the same situations as the autoworkers were in, with all the outsourcing going on.  It’s just kind of the same problems all over again…

“It’s important to understand that when you open markets, it’s not just products going back and forth.  They’re also talking about labor…

“Companies like Microsoft that used to be U.S. companies are now international companies that have no ties to any particular nation anymore.  They’re free to shop and find the cheapest labor they can around the world.  And they basically use that against us here in this country.  They use it as a tool to depress wages here…

“I wish they [our elected officials] would do what they said they were going to do before they were elected, which is put a stop to new trade agreements and step back and take a look at the ones that were already passed, and renegotiate those trade agreements.”