In 1993, First Lady Hillary Clinton lobbied for the North American Free Trade Agreement and her husband signed it. At the time, the Clintons promised NAFTA would create 200,000 new jobs. Instead, NAFTA has destroyed more than 850,000 American jobs while the U.S. trade deficit in goods has rocketed from near zero to $60 billion annually.

The even bigger failure of the Clinton NAFTA deal, however, has been its tremendous negative impact on Mexico itself and Hispanics on both sides of the border. While tens of thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs went south under NAFTA, a flood of agricultural products from the United States put tens of thousands more Mexican farmers on the unemployment line — even as NAFTA raised corn prices and sent 20 million Mexicans into a life of “food poverty.”

It was precisely this body blow from NAFTA to the Mexican agricultural belt that helped trigger a mass migration on the Coyotaje train to El Norte, destroying families and farming towns throughout Mexico in the process.

That’s the ultimate irony of NAFTA: It was supposed to help both Mexico and the United States but it wound up tearing down the U.S. economy and tearing apart a large chunk of Mexican society. And this all happened because Bill and Hillary Clinton didn’t know a good trade deal from a bad one.

Donald Trump brings an entirely different perspective and skill set to trade deals, job creation and immigration reform. It is a perspective that should be welcomed with open arms by an Hispanic and Latino community that seeks economic opportunity, is built on a culture of hard and honest labor and embraces family values.

Here, it must be said that Donald Trump is the only presidential candidate who has ever employed tens of thousands of Latinos in various enterprises around the world. He has treated his workers with respect, paid them fairly and promoted them freely irrespective of race, creed or color and solely on the basis of the good and hard work that they do.

This is a highly successful businessman who has pledged to put an end to “nation-building” and “regime change” wars and instead will focus on creating tens of millions of new jobs. The Obama-Clinton alternative is a “tax the rich” welfare state ham-stringing an economy that continues to vastly underperform.

On the hot button issue of illegal immigration, this, too, must be said: When Donald Trump tells the American people that he will “build that wall,” he means no offense to Hispanics. He is simply recognizing this inalterable truth.

In today’s world of Islamic terrorism, drug smuggling and human trafficking, there can be no economic or national security for America without secure borders.

On its face, it is absurd for the United States or any other country not to tightly police its borders. In a post-9/11 world, the risks are simply too high.

As for how illegal immigration has affected Latinos, this is a two-edged sword. In the past, America’s porous border has provided opportunities for Latinos south of the U.S. border to find a better life in the United States. And many of these former illegals are now proud naturalized citizens of this great country.

Today, however, the ongoing flood of illegal immigrants is depressing wages for all Americans, particularly in the black and Latino communities, even as it reduces job opportunities in an American economy that is vastly under-performing under Democratic Party rule.

At the end of the day, Hispanic-Americans will have a tremendous say in this election, particularly in states such as Colorado and Nevada where Hispanics are truly the swing vote. Those Hispanics who rate jobs and the economy at the top of their list of preferences in a candidate will surely vote for Donald Trump.

Peter Navarro is a business professor at the University of California-Irvine and a senior policy advisor to the Trump campaign. www.crouchingtiger.net