FTAA

Paper Summary:

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) eliminated, or will eliminate (by 2009), all trade barriers between Canada, Mexico and United States. Not long after NAFTA took effect on January 1, 1994, the Clinton Administration made the extension of that agreement (the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, or FTAA) its top trade priority. Specifically, President Clinton proposed to expand NAFTA to include all of Central and South America, thus creating a free trade zone that would extend from Alaska?s Point Barrow in the north down to Argentina?s Tierra del Fuego in the south. The paper argues, however, that such a move is potentially disastrous, as demonstrated by America?s five-year experience with NAFTA. This paper argues against the extension because NAFTA has already had a negative impact on the economy, environment and welfare of both the U.S. and Mexico, and those consequences will only be compounded by the FTAA.

From the Paper:

"By contrast, the areas already hit by the transformation of the American economy suffered even more. Most of the people who lived in these downtrodden regions of Southern California were members of minority groups. They watched helplessly as NAFTA drained more blue-collar jobs away from their already depressed neighborhoods. Those jobs, generally high-paying, had been the ticket to upward mobility for those lacking education or language skills. But companies such as Goodyear, General Motors, and Firestone departed, and the blue-collar opportunities were replaced by minimum wage jobs that offered no hope for escape (O?Connor, 1998, B1)."

More papers on FTAA:

• Essay # 73613 : "FTAA: Free Trade Agreement of the Americas"
• Research Paper # 102766 : "Brazil and the FTAA"
• Research Paper # 100366 : "The FTAA"

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