NAFTA amid Globalization

Impact of NAFTA on Mexico’s manufacturing industry – Effect on Productivity, Wages rates, Incomes, and Investments in FDI

Canada, Mexico and the United States were all involved in NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. This agreement had really helped improve Canada’s economy and raised the standards of living in Canada. NAFTA had also proved itself to be a solid foundation to building Canada’s prosperity which is good for Canada’s independence as well (North, 1). After the free trade agreement, there were many positive effects in the Canadian economy. John F. Kerry, an American politician had once said, “NAFTA recognizes the reality of today's economy - globalization and technology.”(John, 1) This agreement states that Canada is helping in globalizing the economy of not only America but Canada and Mexico as well. In this case, the agreement is improving and benefiting the Canadian economy very well which is great for Canada's independence. It shows that Canada can make its own decisions with other countries to benefit their own country in many ways economic wise as well as independence wise. This also shows that although Canada and America are important trading partners, it doesn't necessarily mean that one country is a step behind the other. It means that if they work together, they can benefit each other and help improve one another's growth as

The North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the United States, and Mexico continues to be greatly beneficial to Canada and its citizens after twenty-two years since the agreement came into effect in 1994. NAFTA has remained as one of Canada’s greatest assets, increasing trading traffic of goods and services. The free trade agreement benefits Canada because it creates more employment, provides Canadians with more selection in goods, and increases economic growth. The North American Free Trade Agreement brings Canada great leverage and will, in all likelihood, continue to benefit us in the future.

After a lengthy negotiation of over 3 years, Canada, the United States, and Mexico reached an agreement on trilateral trade ― the North American Free Trade Agreement. Commonly referred to as NAFTA, it came into effect on the first day of 1994. Covering 450 million of population and reaching $17 trillion in combined GDP, NAFTA proudly ranks the first among the world’s free trade agreements (USTR). It is usually seen as a remarkable success for the countless benefits it brings to its members. Some of NAFTA’s main advantages are promoting closer relationships, eliminating trade barriers, and increasing market opportunities. However, as the first proposer of NAFTA, the United States has indeed benefited the most from it in several different

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.

When countries have needs but not the capacity to satisfy those demands they enter into trading through the exchange of surplus, produce to help their trading partners. Canada, Mexico, and the United States created a treaty to establish a relationship that can benefit everyone in this process known as NAFTA. This agreement has been criticized and has been blamed for hurting the US economy more than helping. Although speculations may be misguided, I do not know much about this agreement, and I must research multiple sources. This paper seeks to understand if NAFTA has produced significant benefits for Canada, Mexico, and the United States economies.

One of the goals of NAFTA is to a bring stronger economic growth to Mexico and limit illegal migration. As for each country, NAFTA would enhance competition for their companies (Sergie, 2016). Some positive aspects of NAFTA are that it gets rid of tariffs among the three countries. It promotes economic growth, increased profits, and jobs for all countries. It also lowers prices on imported goods (Amadeo, 2016). Promoters of NAFTA believe that it will, in some cases, improve conditions in Mexico both environmentally and economically. These promoters consist of some of the world’s largest corporations (Citizen, 2016). However, not all the effects of NAFTA are positive; many of Mexico’s farmers are now out of business, and much of Mexico’s environment has been destroyed (Amadeo, 2016). Opponents of NAFTA believe that it has destroyed thousands of good-paying jobs in the U.S., and this threatens the health, environmental, and food safety standards. These people include labor, environmental, consumer and religious groups (Citizens, 2016). As a result, NAFTA has impacted all three countries economies, both positively and

Critics of NAFTA commonly focus on the U.S.'s trade imbalance with Mexico and Canada. Since labor is cheaper in Mexico, many manufacturing industries withdrew part of their production from the US. Almost 80 percent of the losses were in manufacturing. United States-owned companies employ Mexican workers near the border who are better known as Maquiladora Workers. They cheaply assemble products for export back into the United States. The program grew to employ 30 percent of Mexico's labor force with no labor rights or health protections. Mexico lost 1.3 million farm jobs. The 2002 Farm Bill subsidized U.S. agribusiness by as much as 40 % of net farm income. It became much cheaper and more profitable for people to send crops to Mexico. Mexico agribusiness used more fertilizers and other chemicals,

Unlike the United States 7.25/hr minimum wage, Mexico’s minimum wage is set at just few dollars per day. Careless of the American working class, large corporations closed factories in the US and moved them south of the border to Mexico where they could pay workers a minimum wage and not have to conform to regulations. Since Mexico was added, the US manufacturing sector has outsourced five million jobs (Blecker). Many of these workers did not have a backup plan or funds to support them after they lost their job therefore they fell into extreme poverty. Sadly, these workers could not provide for their families and struggled to survive. Not only did NAFTA ruin the US manufacturing job market, the trade deficit between the USA and Mexico grew exponentially and now sits at an unfathomable amount. The deficit took a turn for the worse due to NAFTA, the United states had a 1.7 billion dollar surplus in 1993 (prior to Mexico’s addition), to a 54 billion dollar deficit by 2014 (Mcbride). Clearly, the United States lost a significant amount of currency due to NAFTA. Although the US is commonly on the losing side of trade deals, NAFTA is by far the most detrimental to the

There is no easy solution to solve the problems of undocumented immigration between the United States and Mexico. The United States has no control on what other countries do and how they treat their people. If Mexico isn’t looking out for their people they will continue to migrate. United States has been the country where help is given and Mexico is very poor so they come here looking for the American dream. The North American Free Trade (NAFTA) Agreement’s history began in 1980.It’s purpose is to help with reduce trading costs, increase business investments in Mexico, Canada and United States. In 1984, Congress passed the Trade

The North American Free Trade Agreement created the world's largest free trade area. It links 450 million people together all around the world. Its member’s economies generate $20.8 trillion in gross domestic product. NAFTA was hidden in controversy. Advocates of NAFTA viewed the agreement as a valid extension of U.S. trade liberalization policy, while adversaries of NAFTA criticized the agreement as a result of a great business. Facing severe opposition in the United States, NAFTA gave rise to a diverse partnership of environmentalists, organized labor, protectionist Democrats and general independents. They claimed that the approval of NAFTA would result in a mass exodus of jobs from the United States and Canada into Mexico, where wages were

Since 1993, total trade between the three signatory nations has gone from $290 billion to $1.1 trillion in 2016, with foreign direct investment (FDI) in Mexico increasing by over $90 billion (“NAFTA’s Impact on the U.S. Economy,” 2016). In addition, per capita American GDP growth is estimated to have been around $400 (“NAFTA’s Impact on the U.S. Economy”). Critics, however, still have plenty of material to work with. Though American jobs created by the deal pay on average 15-20% more than jobs lost, across the border in Mexico wages have stagnated with an increase of only 400,000 new jobs (“NAFTA’S Impact on the U.S. Economy”). It is also reasonable to argue that free trade has come at the price of necessary regulation. Since companies could move operations north or south more easily, many unions lost their bargaining power and some businesses began ignoring environmental regulations (Faux, 2013). Mexican small businesses also suffered, giving rise to the claim that NAFTA could have caused more illegal immigration (Faux). As far as FDI was concerned, the U.S. and Canada benefitted significantly more than Mexico (Feils & Rahman, 2008, p. 162). Job losses in labor intensive industries like auto manufacturing were felt the most as the low wage labor became available elsewhere (“NAFTA’s Impact on the U.S. Economy”). Inevitably, these various effects created groups of winners and losers that struggled to agree on NAFTA’s true

The North American Free Trade Agreement was created in order to help relations between Canada, The United States, and Mexico. While Canada had previous relations with the US with free trade when Mexico became a part of the talks in 1991 thus creating the North American Free Trade Agreement otherwise known as NAFTA. The premises of the agreement are to allow trade without tariffs except on certain products to flow freely between the three countries. While NAFTA include Mexico, United States, and Canada the paper will focus on the relationship between the US and its southern neighbor Mexico, the paper will inform the reader NAFTA consists of, the controversy behind creating NAFTA, the effects of NAFTA on Mexico’s economy, environments and

Mexico’s economy has long depended on trade with the U.S., and those ties have only deepened since 1994 when the North American Free Trade Agreement lowered trade barriers between the two nations. Mexican exports more than quadrupled since NAFTA went into effect; they accounted for 37.5 percent of Mexico’s gross domestic product in 2015 (they make

Many economists have done studies to quantify the welfare effects of NAFTA on its member states. One 2015 study estimated the welfare effect of NAFTA on its member states. It found a welfare increase of 1.31% in Mexico, an increase of 0.08% in the US, and a welfare decrease of 0.06% in Canada. Although these effects are very modest, some argue that NAFTA has had more pronounced effects on specific sectors of these countries’