The electronics industry.

From before World War II through the 1970s, the United States' electronics industry was an economic powerhouse. All of the world's most advanced electronics, from consumer to industrial applications, were designed and manufactured in the United States. Firms like GE, Magnavox, Sylvania, Zenith, RCA, and others dominated electronics manufacturing and sales--and the products these companies produced were made in U.S. factories by U.S. workers. Foreign competition began to decimate the industry in the 1980s, but the death knell came with the passage of NAFTA, when even Japanese firms moved production to Mexico. The remaining U.S. producers packed up and went south, taking their high-paying jobs with them.

In 2004, Sen. Joe Lieberman released a report through his Senate office detailing the economic impact of this "offshore outsourcing." The report, prepared by Lieberman staffer Sara E. Hagigh and Mary Jane Bolle of the Congressional Research Service, noted that the trend to move business offshore is still "contributing to historically high levels of unemployment among electronics, software and computer engineers in the United States." The Lieberman report also noted, ominously, that "the loss of R&D infrastructure could have important ramifications for our ability to create high-wage, high-technology jobs in the future. What is at stake is the ability of the United States to remain a global leader in innovation, to maintain high-paying jobs, and to ensure future competitiveness and growth."

Oscar F. Contreras, visiting fellow at Mexico's El Colegio de Sonora, and Rhonda Evans of the University of California, Berkeley, were more blunt in their assessment of NAFTA's effects on the U.S. electronics manufacturers. In a 2002 report, they wrote: "The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that went into effect on January 1, 1994 encouraged a regional reorganization of the consumer electronics industry in general and the TV segment of the industry in particular.... All stages of TV production, including design, the manufacture of key components, and final assembly shifted from the U.S. to northern Mexico in the wake of the agreement."

The drain on electronics continues. In Pittsburgh, 900 jobs in the industry have been lost at the city's Sony Technology Center as the company moves capacity to Mexico. "Now, Sony Technology Center-Pittsburgh no longer manufactures anything, only assembles Grand Wega and SXRD rear-projection TVs; and that business moves to Mexico this year," the Pittsburgh TribuneReview reported. While Sony may move some LCD production to Pennsylvania, that too may be transitory. "The way things go with Sony is that things start in Japan, then they bring the idea to the U.S. to refine it, then when they're really ready to ramp up production, they'll take it to Mexico," Edward Taylor, former head of business planning for Sony's U.S. TV operations, told the Pittsburgh paper.