Pros And Cons Of NAFTA

The North American Free Trade Agreement—NAFTA—was an important agreement signed between three countries—the U.S., Mexico and Canada. NAFTA played an important role between each of these countries’ relations with one another through imports and exports. Throughout the presidential elections throughout the years, NAFTA has been highly debated on whether or not it has helped benefit the economy of these countries or if it has caused a lot detrimental issues. NAFTA promised many benefits for these countries, but not all of their promises were carried through; many views across the political spectrum also have their indifferences about NAFTA. NAFTA was signed in 1994 with the goals of eliminating tariffs, promoting free trade, bringing Mexico

The administration believed that NAFTA would create high-wage U.S jobs that would help expand businesses and the economy—making the U.S. the biggest exporter in the world with the biggest global market (Woods 287-288). Also, since many immigrants sought job opportunities in the U.S., NAFTA was to keep Mexicans in Mexico. Providing jobs in Mexico would allow U.S. workers to work for higher wages if there was a reduction in immigration (Woods 287). Woods also state that NAFTA would barely affect any change in the U.S., but for Mexico, there would be drastic changes. It will create even more ties and communication between the two countries. It will remove restrictions set between the two countries (288-289). Although the Clinton administration saw NAFTA creating a positive change between countries, the effects of NAFTA were the opposite of what was

Mexico’s economy was very unstable and unfair in comparison to the U.S. and Canada’s economic standing. But even though Mexico’s economy was bad, Canada and the U.S. ignored that Mexico wasn’t in any condition to enter as an equal partner (Henderson 121). The overvalued peso in Mexico also caused many problems economically. Since the peso was overvalued for many years, when the peso did float in 1994, it lost 20 percent of its value (Henderson 123). Due to this drastic change to Mexico’s currency, Mexicans were unable to make their payments nor buy goods because the prices rose drastically, which caused many businesses to shut down or lay off their workers (Henderson 123). This was the start of the many problems yet to come because these countries would be trading unequally with Mexico since Mexico didn’t have much to give besides workers who would work for cheap