Nafta

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorUniversity, Bachelor's February 2008

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NAFTA         On January 1st, 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect, creating the world’s largest free trade area. Among the main objectives is the liberalization of trade between Canada, Mexico and the United States, to stimulate economic growth and give the NAFTA countries equal access to each other’s markets. Some of the promised benefits were 200,000 new U.S. jobs from NAFTA per year, higher wages in Mexico, a growing U.S. trade surplus with Mexico, environmental clean-up and improved health along the border. This appeared to be a great agreement, but after only five years of being in affect, Americans were starting to see the results of NAFTA and the failing promises. In 1999, for the first time ever, Americans say the U.S. trade deficit is the most important economic issue facing the country, above taxes, the federal budget deficit, and inflation.

        After years of NAFTA, the American people were starting to see the real effects of NAFTA.

The most important feature of NAFTA that would benefit the people is employment and the promise that NAFTA would create hundreds of thousands of new, high paying jobs. There was also a promise that wages in Mexico would increase due to NAFTA. With NAFTA, we were promised lower prices on agriculture and beef, and promised that the environmental problem in Tijuana would be greatly reduced if NAFTA would be put into affect. It seems as if the only people NAFTA has benefited is large corporations. More corporations are shutting down plants in the U.S. and moving across the border where they can pay a substantially lower wage rate for their employees. Corporations can produce their products in Mexico and ship them back to the U.S. with no tariffs or taxes, saving the corporations a large amount. Since the introduction of...