NAFTA-Unaccomplished promises

“Real wages in Mexico are lower today than when NAFTA was approved and have not kept pace with productivity gains.”-This is the official view of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace about the successes of NAFTA on its 10th anniversary in 2004. NAFTA or the North American Free Trade Agreement is an agreement signed between United States of America, Canada and Mexico in 1994. The goal of NAFTA was to provide lower trade barriers and to encourage the trade between these countries. The creators of NAFTA supposed that a free trade agreement between these countries would be a good way to insure the development and foreign investments for Mexico, and new markets and labor force for United States and Canada.

Nevertheless even in the beginning this agreement had its negative sides and there were many opponents. Bill Clinton who was the President of United States had problems with the negotiation of the agreement. United State’s Congress was not convinced that this agreement would not cause important environmental problems and they also wanted to protect the American working force.

In this critical review we will try to show in what measures NAFTA has taken and the impact that it had on three countries involved in the agreement. We will concentrate mostly on the United States and Mexico, since these two countries are the most pertinent parts in the agreement and since the position of Canada is rarely mentions even in the literature treating this subject. We will defend the position that NAFTA didn’t achieve expected goals and that it didn’t have promised benefits.

[...] In other word, NAFTA was a way to commit Mexico to this trend of free trade and liberalization to benefit the elites who own specific sectors that are export oriented and FDI oriented in order to gain more money and power. We can find similar motivation on the American or Canadian sides where NAFTA was a guarantee of moneymaker for big corporations (e.g delocalization). Conclusion NAFTA’s signatories had a very positive, ambitious and motivating discourses concerning the agreement and presented it to the different populations as a great accord and the guarantee of a new successful Mexican economy. [...]

[...] results. When speaking critically about NAFTA it is important to underline that it doesn’t mean the rejection of free trade. NAFTA is seen in this paper only as one of the examples of free trade that didn’t work among many others that showed positive results. This subject seemed interesting and pertinent since we consider that in today’s globalized world free trade represents one of the main ways to improve the growth and exchange between countries. Nevertheless it is important to take also negative examples of free trade in order to learn from mistakes and to make better agreements and opportunities for populations in future. [...]