The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), came into effect on January 1, 1994, creating the largest free trade region in the world, generating economic growth and helping to raise the standard of living for the people of all three countries participating. By strengthening the rules and procedures governing trade and investment, the NAFTA has shown to be a great base for adding to Canada’s prosperity and has set a valuable example of the benefits of trade liberalization for the rest of the world. NAFTA was designed with many economic results in mind. Hopes were that not only trade would be easier, cheaper, and easier for all countries involved, but economic wealth and growth would follow. The support for NAFTA was spilt among the …show more content…
That created a lot of pay cheques in Canada.”(Marville)
Trade of commodities is not the only thing that has grown in response to NAFTA as Canada also has benefited from an increase of trade in services. In Canada, NAFTA has helped to increase the imports of goods over the past decade in these fields: machinery and equipment, communications equipment, and automotive equipment. This has caused Canada's automotive industry to have a noticeable rise, allowing the economy to increase positively. Exports of goods from Canada have also grown significantly. Example being, in 1998, the increase in Canada's exports to the NAFTA regions was approximately equivalent to the entire value of our exports to Japan and to the 15 nations of the European Union combined. These simple statistics can easily show how the North American Free Trade Agreement has impacted the imports and exports to Canada positively. (Rolf Mirus) Canada has benefited directly from NAFTA as every one in five jobs are in linked to international trade. (GlobeRover) With the savings from tax and tariff extermination between the three NAFTA regions, Canada is able to spend money on hiring more workers - with more workers, Canada receives more income and with more income, Canada receives more profit which in turn leads to a better and stronger economy. Canada has added 4.7 million new jobs since 1993. (Mohammed Aly Sergie) and
Last but not least, NAFTA has given United States access to much needed cheap resources. As a huge manufacturing country, the U.S. is always in demand of natural resources. Canada and Mexico, on the other hand, are resource-rich countries and over 12% of their exports is petroleum products (The Observatory of Economic Complexity). NAFTA has lowered the tariffs thus giving Americans more access to its neighbours’ oil reserves. Futhermore, when signing NAFTA, Canada agreed that they will not reduce oil exports to the U.S. even during shortage, unless Canada cuts its own supplies. That is, the percentage of oil exports to the U.S. cannot be changed. The United States therefore receives less impacts from fluctuating world oil price, and is guaranteed a steady supply of oil for its industries. In addition to that, NAFTA makes it possible for the U.S. to take advantage of the large educated work force in Mexico. American businesses set up factories along Mexican boundary and employ local workers to assemble products from imported U.S. components, the final products are then exported back to the U.S. Known as maquiladora, these factories have the worst working condition in North America (Mexican Rural Development Research Reports). The workers have no human rights or health
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has boosted the US economy growth by introducing free trade with Mexico and Canada. Since, after the implementation of NAFTA in 1994, US have experienced several favourable outcomes. The imports and exports of agricultural goods, electronic equipment, machinery, automobiles, drugs, oil and minerals have been increased among the NAFTA countries thus giving rise to total profits. The agreement has also contributed in eliminating the unemployment in United States and has controlled inflation rates. NAFTA bloc has also created number of job opportunities in the country. Moreover, the consumer prices have been decreased and income levels of US citizens have been raised due to reduced tariffs and taxes. This paper will discuss the facts and figures since 1993 and show how United States has achieved benefits with NAFTA agreement.
3.___ The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is advantageous for Canada because manufacturing jobs have been sent to Mexico where labour is cheaper.
With trade increasing in Canada, on the one hand, it increases the demand for more people to do the work, which means that more people get a job and have more money to spend on goods that are imported from other countries. On the other hand, Canadian companies in different divisions from automotive, to energy, to agriculture(www.theglobeandmail.com) have to hire more people that are able to work because there are more products that should people to deal with between trade and with Canadian companies are becoming more profitable, it has more money to hire more people. For example, jobs are increased in the area of transportation in order to get the products to the stores. According to the fact, the agreement has helped produce over 1.8 million new jobs for Canadians at first 5 years of NAFTAs existence (www.nafta.ca). However, NAFTA makes huge damage for the Canadian automotive industry because with a stronger automotive union, every year will require higher wages, which slows process and makes it inflexible and expensive (www.international.gc.ca). Although NAFTA hurts the auto industry in Canada, it brings more benefits to Canada because it decrease the unemployment and improve the Canadian economy and condition of
The first reason why NAFTA has been beneficial to Canada is that it has allowed Canada to create more jobs and has also been a leading reason the unemployment rate is low in Canada. The creation and maintenance of jobs are advantageous to a country as it is a sign that more goods are being produced and traded. Jobs also keep Canadians prosperous and gives them the ability to support themselves. The introduction of free trade has opened up new job opportunities due to the security and accessibility to the American and Mexican markets. The newfound access to these markets allows for more goods to be traded and produced which means that more jobs are generated. Canadian businesses are now willing to expand their establishment also due to the
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
First, a benefit of NAFTA is that it cemented strong relationships among the three countries, which has important foreign policy implications. Under NAFTA, the United States, Canada, and Mexico become a single, giant, integrated market of almost 400 million people with $6.5 trillion worth of goods and services annually. In a speech by Bill Clinton, he explains how the implications of NAFTA would be profitable. “NAFTA will tear clown trade barriers between our three nations. It will create the world's largest trade zone and create 200,000 jobs in this country by 1995 alone” (Remarks on the Signing of NAFTA, 1993). It spawned economical gain and encouraged trade among the three nations. NAFTA is the largest trading block of its kind with a surplus of job opportunities rising especially in Canada and Mexico. Another reason NAFTA proved successful was the rise of exports, and decrease in protection. Export jobs are increasing far faster than any jobs that may have moved overseas; we want to have more jobs here and the way to do that is to increase our exports. Bush responds with his reasoning to his justification of exports. “Well, Carole, the thing that saved us in this global economic slowdown is in our exports. And what I'm trying to do is increase our exports” (Presidential debate in Richmond, 1992). This quote shows how the integration of NAFTA, free and fair trade, is the best option to go
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which became effective on January 1, 1994, is a comprehensive, rules-based agreement designed to promote “free-trade” among the United States, Mexico and Canada (NAFTA Forum,1998). Although the agreement was made between three countries, it was largely the inclusion of Mexico around which most of the oppositional debate was centered (Mayer, 1998). Canada is a modern, developed nation very similar in culture and economy to the United States. Mexico, however, is considered a developing nation with an economy much weaker than the United States. Still, a prior trade agreement did exist between the United States and Mexico. Therefore, in order to properly evaluate
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,
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was is the biggest free trade region in the globe, creating economic development and helping to raise the living standard for the citizens of all three member states. By strengthening the policies and procedures governing trade and investment, the NAFTA has indicated to be a solid foundation for developing Canada’s prosperity and has set an important example of the advantages of trade liberalization for the rest of the globe. Two decades after its implementation, the NAFTA, has helped make better intraregional trade among the states of Canada, Mexico, and the United States, but has not created the jobs and the deeper regional economic integration its promoters promised years
NAFTA was signed on 17 December 1992 between Canada, Mexico and the United States, though not coming into effect until January 1994. It was, and still is, one of the most successful trade agreements in history and has contributed to significant increases in trade and investment between the three countries ("Naftanow", 2012). The purpose of NAFTA was to remove various trade barriers between its members to allow for more beneficial trade agreements. NAFTA has demonstrated how free trade can increase wealth and competitiveness, delivering real benefits to families, farmers,
Since the signing of the NAFTA there have been varying conclusions and results as to the benefits and effects NAFTA have brought to Canada. There have also been concerns pertaining to if the goals of NAFTA have been met. At the time concerns were voiced regarding the differences in the countries level of economic development, wages and relative factor endowments. Critics argued that, given the differences in each variable for each country, trade liberalization would have a significant distributional effect within each country. This would end up creating winner and losers in the agreement. In this paper I will assess the benefits NAFTA have brought to Canada. To assess the benefits that have been derived from NAFTA
Benefits such as new U.S. jobs, higher wages in Mexico, a growing U.S. trade surplus
Firstly, the North American Free Trade Agreement was beneficial to Canada because it strengthened its relationship with the United States. The historical relationship between the