Now let’s turn to the nation’s critical manufacturing sector, which not only generates the economy’s highest productivity gains, most research and development, and highest-paying jobs, but also underpins our national security. Supporters of recent U.S. trade policies have long insisted that these policies have benefitted domestic manufacturing, and point to the 1990s as proof. Starting with NAFTA, many trade deals were signed during the decade, and manufacturing output grew amid an economy-wide expansion. Chart Four shows the increase in this output during the 1990s expansion, which lasted a record 120 months.

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