Pros And Cons Of Nafta

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In January 1994, the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) came into force between Canada, United States, and Mexico. It was largely pushed by the Mexican government after the Canada- US Free-Trade Agreement (CUSFTA). NAFTA, the first trilateral trade bloc in North America aimed to eliminate barriers to trade and investment among the three member countries. The FTA was the first trading agreement between a developing country and two developed countries. NAFTA, or the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, is a treaty made and kept between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. NAFTA first went into effect in 1994, and has continued uninterrupted, with the addition of various other economic and labor policies since then. Countless benefits and…show more content…
Who, however, is really benefitting from NAFTA? Is the nation as a whole better off? A closer look at these benefits shows that they really only apply to the owners and top business men. The owners benefit from not being taxed on exported goods to Canada and Mexico. This opens a considerable trade opportunity that is cheaper due to the absence of tariffs and cheaper do to location. Since NAFTA has provisions that favor keeping the companies rooted in the home country, business owners in the United States are easily able to receive benefits from keeping their company present in the country, and yet rely on cheap foreign labor, in Mexico, for example that both abuses the hard work of people in other countries and takes jobs away from U.S. workers, even though NAFTA claims to avoid this (Both the Advantages and Disadvantages…, 2010). Labor is thus obtained at a cheaper rate and without the need for the company to invest in employee benefits such as social security or health care. Workers within the U.S are therefore required to work for lower wages than they otherwise would in order to avoid their company from moving their industrial sectors abroad, leaving the Americans out of work all together (Both the Advantages and Disadvantages…, 2010). In addition to U.S jobs being lost, Mexican companies and small businesses have also been put out of business because the American goods can now be imported so cheaply (Amadeo,
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