"This expose shows us how Washington works to make something happen, even when confronted with widespread popular opposition. It chronicles the brutal and expensive campaign in 1993 that led to passage of the poorly understood, highly controversial law creating the North American Free Trade Agreement, but its story is up-to-date.". "John R. MacArthur, investigating the political and public-relations tactics of the Democratic-Republican big-business coalition that favored NAFTA, shows in dramatic detail just how the major players - Gore, Bradley, Clinton, Gephardt, Bush, and the other members of what he calls the bipartisan oligarchy - defeated the ad hoc groups of working people, skeptics, and mavericks on Capitol Hill who questioned the value of a manifestly unpopular bill. We learn how these oligarchs do their business with the Fortune 500 companies dominating American trade policy and how they have disregarded the workers' and environmentalists' concerns they now purport to care about. How NAFTA was put across - or put over on us - is the central story of this book."--BOOK JACKET.