North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that NAFTA immediately removed tariffs on the majority of goods produced by the participating nations and set forth a plan for the gradual elimination, over a period of 15 years, of most remaining barriers to cross-border investment and to the movement of goods and services among the three countries. The author points out that, unlike the United States, Mexico's border communities have benefited from NAFTA, growing almost 10 times as fast as states in Mexico's south, while absorbing the lion's share of foreign investments. The paper concludes that calling NAFTA a "trade" agreement is misleading; NAFTA is actually an investment agreement because its core provisions grant foreign investors a solid set of new rights and privileges that promote relocation abroad of factories and jobs and the privatization and deregulation of essential services, including water, energy, and health care.

From the Paper:

"In 2000, California's exports to Mexico totaled $14.4 billion, an increase of nearly 18 percent over the previous year, and Texas' shipments grew 5.5 percent to a total of $24.6 billion, according to Commerce Department figures (Lewis, 2004). Meanwhile, the United States continues to lure Mexican workers, many of whom came from rural communities when Mexico opened its markets to subsidized U.S. agricultural goods."

More papers on North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA):

• Term Paper # 99577 : "The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)"
• Research Paper # 49193 : "The North American Free Trade Agreement"
• Argumentative Essay # 100683 : "North American Free Trade Agreement"
• Term Paper # 108843 : "North American Free Trade Agreement"

APA Citation:

MLA Citation: