NAFTA: The North American Free Trade Agreement

Throughout history, the United States has initiated policies, peace agreements, or laws which were believed to bring prosperity, and success, however those policies as a result were created in the U.S. best self-interest. One of these policies is known as NAFTA, which was a trade agreement created to open up free trade around the globe, however this policy backfired, deeply scaring and deteriorating the Latin American economy, and its people. Specifically, NAFTA known as the North American Free Trade Agreement, took effect on January 1, 1994 was a treaty which entered by the United States, Canada, and Mexico used to eliminate tariff barriers, in order to encourage economic prosperity between these three countries. A quarter century later, the

Prior to NAFTA (Inc. April 2006), “… tariffs of thirty percent or higher on export goods to Mexico were common, as were long delays caused by paperwork…. NAFTA addressed this imbalance by phasing out tariffs over 15 years. Approximately 50 percent of the tariffs were abolished immediately when the agreement took effect, and the remaining tariffs were targeted for gradual elimination.” According to Kimberly Amadeo (2015), article 102 of the NAFTA agreement outlines its purposes which is to “Grant the signatories Most Favored Nation status, eliminate barriers to trade and facilitate the cross-border movement of goods and services, promote conditions of fair competition, increase investment opportunities, provide protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights, create procedures for the resolution of trade disputes, and establish a framework for further, trilateral, regional, and multilateral cooperation to expand the trade agreement’s benefits.”. This quotation, condenses the agreement by stating that the intentions of NAFTA which was an agreement created to ease trade on imports and exports, by eliminating tariff barriers, in order to encourage competition and venture opportunities. Although, free trade is supposed to bring wealth, strength, and prosperity it should also

Very high population rates do not correspond with working labor force, in that (Polaski 2004) the Mexican labor force grew from 32.3 million immediately before NAFTA to 40.2 million in 2002, meaning that Mexico needed almost a million jobs a year simply to absorb the growth in labor supply. Many theorists suggest that a free trade zone will increase employment, by the increase demand for labor therefore creating a vast rapid workforce. However, NAFTA has greatly impacted manufacturing employment, by producing a low small net gain in hobs in Mexico, in that jobs created in export manufacturing have barely kept pace with jobs lost in agriculture due to imports (Polaski 2004). There has been a visible weakening in domestic manufacturing employment, related in part to increase import competition. In addition, the cause of a decline in domestic manufacturing employment is caused due to the relocation of the maquiladora factory workforce, which the United States has relocated the maquiladora assembly plants to China and Indonesia, because of low wage, cheaper labor workforce, skilled workforce, and less environmental protection laws. The maquiladora assembly plants in the late 20th century have disappeared