…Members of congress, various Israel lobby organization pundits and chambers of commerce occasionally trumpet the deal as a success. In 2009 Martin Indyk, head of the AIPAC research unit that worked hard to lobby in support of the deal (before spinning off AIPAC’s think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy at the peak of the FBI investigation) confidently claimed, “the US-Israel Free Trade Agreement served as a wedge that opened up the Congress to Free Trade Agreements throughout the world, including the NAFTA agreement. No doubt there are some downsides to it, but otherwise it’s been a very positive thing.” (YouTube version)
However, the numbers reveal that it has been positive only for Israel. In terms of the cumulative inflation-adjusted deficit created since this first “free” trade deal was signed, it is the worst-performing of all US bilateral trade agreements, and the second-worst of all US trade agreements, trailing only NAFTA.
Source: US Census foreign trade data