Giant sucking sound


The "giant sucking sound" was a phrase used by United States presidential candidate Ross Perot, to describe what he believed would be the negative effects of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he opposed.

First usage and context

The phrase, which Perot coined during his 1992 presidential campaign, referred to the sound of US jobs heading south for Mexico should the free-trade agreement go into effect.
In the second 1992 Presidential Debate, Ross Perot argued:
We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. It's pretty simple: If you're paying $12, $13, $14 an hour for factory workers and you can move your factory South of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor,... have no health care—that's the most expensive single element in making a car— have no environmental controls, no pollution controls and no retirement, and you don't care about anything but making money, there will be a giant sucking sound going south.
... when jobs come up from a dollar an hour to six dollars an hour, and ours go down to six dollars an hour, and then it's leveled again. But in the meantime, you've wrecked the country with these kinds of deals.

Perot ultimately lost the election, and the winner, Bill Clinton, supported NAFTA, which went into effect on January 1, 1994.

Legacy

The phrase has since come into general use to describe any situation involving loss of jobs, or fear of a loss of jobs, particularly by one nation to a rival. Examples include: