Nafta Pros And Cons

The North American Free Trade Agreement is a pact that brought on a huge trend of trade agreements and spurred globalization throughout the world. It superseded the 1988 Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement, and was intended to bring Mexico into the trade agreement and make a huge trilateral hub for business and trade, with many benefits for each country. However, NAFTA raised some complications in many aspects of life for most people living in Mexico.
In December 17, 1992 George H. W. Bush of the United States, Manuel Salinas of Mexico, Brian Mulroney of Canada all came to an agreement over this iconic trade deal that would bring economic advantages for the three countries. The goals of the agreement were to integrate Mexico’s economy

with that of the highly-developed, high wage economies of the United States and Canada. It was hoped that integrating Mexico with its neighbors to the north would help its economy see steady growth, provide new jobs and opportunities for its workforce, including shrinking the wage gap between Mexico and the other two countries, and in this way help deter illegal migration from Mexico. Mexico in turn would provide a promising new market with low cost investment opportunities that would improve the competitiveness of American and Canadian companies. Just like any free trade agreement, NAFTA was highly debated, but this one more hotly so, because it was one of the first times that there would be a free trade agreement that included economies at such different levels of development. The biggest fear out of the north, particularly the US, was that the lower wages in Mexico would lead to many American jobs being sent south of the border. The big fear in Mexico was that they would be pushed out of markets by bigger, more developed American corporations.
NAFTA would achieve its goals by liberalizing the three countries’ markets and eliminating barriers to trade.

Some of the key points follow. There would be an immediate elimination of tariffs for many goods, and a phase out of tariffs for the rest. On the day NAFTA took effect, tariffs on over a third of US exports to Mexico were eliminated, and tariffs on more than half of Mexico’s exports to the US were eliminated. Tariffs on other goods would be phased out over the next ten years, with the exception of some US-to-Mexico agricultural exports which would be phased out within 15 years. Non-tariff barriers were also to be eliminated. The US-Canada Free Trade Agreement was one of the first trade agreements to establish a set of policies regarding the trade of services, and NAFTA would broaden these policies and extend them to Mexico. Almost all service industries were protected under the deals provisions, though some were excluded, including basic telecommunications, aviation transport, and each country was able to exclude certain sensitive sectors. NAFTA would promote conditions of fair competition in the free trade area, mostly by removing certain requirements on foreigners, and increase substantially invest opportunities in the region. NAFTA also provided some of the highest protection of intellectual property of any other trade agreements at the time. This would promote export-driven growth in some of the US’ most competitive industries, such as the blooming tech industry. The free trade agreement also created a trilateral Free Trade Commission which would be able to effectively and efficiently resolve any disputes that may arise among the member countries. NAFTA was also one of the first trade agreements to include policies protecting the environment. There were concerns whether Mexico’s weaker environmental standards and more lax enforcement of them, would lead to an unfair advantage for the country. Other concerns involved the increase in

pollution in Mexico if the country saw rapid industrial growth.