Canadian Free Trade Agreement (FTA)

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is an international agreement between Canada, America and Mexico. This agreement took effect in January 1994 and was signed by President Bill Clinton. This agreement brought great changes in trade volumes and open new opportunities for millions of labours. Later, in January 2008 according to the schedule all duties and restrictions were eliminated. About 45,000 tariffs were eliminated in 1994 and only 3000 were left until 1999.

The Canada Free Trade Agreement was implemented with the goal of eliminating all tariffs between the US and Canada. The Canada agreement also attempted to create conditions for fair competition within the free trade area, expand free trade and conditions for cross border investment, establish effective procedures for the joint administration of the agreement and the resolution of disputes, and finally lay the foundation for further cooperation and enhance the benefits of the agreement.

In 1987, Mulroney opened up negotiations that would eventually lead to the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between Canada and United States. The FTA was signed on October 4th, 1987 in hopes of improving trade transactions between the two countries (see fig2).

Episode three of the Commanding Heights video series was about the new era of globalization and how it would affect the economy. The 1990’s began a new era of globalization that established free trade and open markets. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was developed to deal with the trade issue mentioned during the 1992 Presidential Debate. This agreement was negotiated in October 1992 by President George W. Bush and signed into law December 1993 by President Bill Clinton. The agreement between the United States, Canada, and Mexico went into effect January 1994 in which trade restrictions were lifted that enabled economic growth in these countries.

The NAFTA was a trade agreement between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. It was signed into office in 1993. Granting free trade and no tariff tax on products being imported into the United States. NAFTA was heavily criticized by Ross Perot, who argued that Americans would hear a “giant sucking sound”

Talks about a free trade agreement between North American countries were already being discussed prior the North American Free Trade Agreement. Beginning in 1985, President Reagan and the Canadian Prime Minister, Mulroney, exchanged letters of resolution to negotiate a Free Trade Agreement. This FTA would then be drafted, ratified, and eventually enacted in January 1989 between the two countries. At the same time, trade was at an all-time high between Canada and Mexico. So much so that a

Investopedia.com states, “free trade is the economic policy of not discriminating against imports from and exports to foreign jurisdictions. (Buyers and sellers from separate economies may voluntarily trade without the domestic government applying tariffs, quotas, subsidies or prohibitions on their goods or services.)” In the previous decade, one of the many controversial subjects in the Canadian economy included whether or not it was beneficial for our federal government to eradicate free trade or open it up to other nations. During my research, I discovered that free trade agreements between Canada and other nations were not as beneficial as they may have seemed for they were often business and market oriented.

As every step taken by a government is to ensure the well being of its nation and the prosperity of the country, Canada was pushed by the same driving force to make a trade deal with US. Since the primary purpose and advantage offered by a free trade agreement is to exploit the no tariff trade, it was not the goal of Canadian government while seeking this agreement. The trade tariffs were already very low, around 1% of the total value of the trade, then a question arises that what Canadian government was aiming for.

The North American Free Trade Agreement, commonly known as the NAFTA, is a trade agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico launched to enable North America to become more competitive in the global marketplace (Amadeo, 2011). The NAFTA is regarded as “one of the most successful trade agreements in history” for its impact on increases in agricultural trade and investment among the three contracting nations (North American Free Trade Agreement, 2011). Supporters and opponents of the NAFTA have argued the effects of the agreement on participating nations since its inception; yet, close examination proves that NAFTA has had a relatively positive impact on the economies of the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

Secondly, NAFTA helped create many jobs for Canadians. Statistics Canada shows that about 1 out of 5 jobs are linked to international trade. The agreement overall has helped produce fairly “around 1.8 million new jobs in its first 5 years.” With increasing trade in Canada, it created the demand for more people to do the work that is brought onto the country because more people getting employed, means more money they have to spend on goods that are imported from other countries. For Canadian companies that handle the trade sector, they had to hire people that were able to work because more products, meant more work which created more jobs. The cycle continued to bloom in the economy. “NAFTA also increased employment in different sectors from

The North American Free Trade Agreement or as its most commonly known NAFTA “is a comprehensive rules-based agreement between the United States, Canada, and Mexico”, that came into effect on January 1,1994. All three countries signed it in December of 1992; later on November of 1993 it was ratified by the United States congress. NAFTA was not only used in cutting down on tariffs between both countries but it also help deal with issues such as Transportation, Border Issues, and Environmental Issues between these two countries. NAFTA changed some tariffs immediately and within fifteen years other tariffs will fall to zero. NAFTA was not created to just lower tariffs it was also created to open protected sectors in agriculture, energy,

It is believed by many leading economists and theorists that the process of dollarization is very important and that it would greatly further the cause of NAFTA. “Dollarization occurs when residents of a country extensively use the U.S. dollar or another foreign currency alongside or instead of the domestic currency. Unofficial dollarization occurs when individuals hold foreign-currency bank deposits or notes (paper money) to protect against high inflation in the domestic currency. Official dollarization occurs when a government adopts foreign currency as the predominant or exclusive legal tender” (Mack 1999). This is proposing that the NAFTA becomes more like the EU, and has a single currency.

It is commonly believed that free trade between nations is a mutually beneficial arrangement for all parties involved; indeed, this is held to be an absolute truth. Though free trade is undoubtedly the most effective form of commerce between countries from a purely economic standpoint, increasingly we find that our so-called "free trade agreements" are horribly unbalanced. Indicative of these fiascoes is the North American

     There are various trade agreements the United States have with many other countries and I will do a brief overview of a few of them. The most noticeable one is the North American Free Trade Agreement, which include the United States, Mexico, and Canada. This agreement was constructed and approved in January of 1992 and formed the largest free trade area. NAFTA eliminated and reduce tariffs and non-tariff barriers in addition to comprehensive provisions in the way trade was conducted between these countries.

Free traders promoted NAFTA with the belief that the transfer of low skilled jobs from the North of the continent to the South would bring about a diverse selection of cheap consumer goods. NAFTA would allow the free flow of goods, investment and services within North American to flourish.4 Despite the heated opposition to the liberalization of trade the Canadian government agreed to the trilateral agreement in 1994. Tariff