Today’s Free Trade Fact of the Day comes from former Delaware Governor Pete du Pont who writes in the Wall Street Journal:

Trade creates jobs. America’s exports of goods sold abroad–electrical machinery, chemicals, plastics, agricultural products, medical and scientific instrumentation, for example–support six million American jobs. Exports of services account for another five million jobs. And foreign-owned companies operating in the U.S. directly employ five million American workers, including 16,000 in Ohio by Honda, 5,400 in South Carolina by BMW, 6,000 by Nokia and 15,000 by Nestlé.

So free trade is helping, not hurting, the American economy. Of course our economy changes over time (all economies do), and we have shifted from heavy industry to a more information-based service economy. But overall job growth has nevertheless been positive.