NAFTA 10 Years Later

This article goes through and describes the ways in which the North American Free Trade Agreement has made the United States economy strong over the ten year period of 1993 til 2003. The United States trade with Mexico has increased dramatically. From 1993 til 2003 the amount of exports sent to Mexico has increased 106%. Exports into Canada also grew some 62%. The United States exports to the rest of the world only grew by 36%. The article also goes on to tell how the trade agreement has allowed the United States to maintain a competitive advantage over Europe in Mexico. Mexico and Europe also have a free trade agreement. If it were not for NAFTA, the majority of that 106% growth the United States experienced in exports would have surly gone to Europe.

Whether or not NAFTA has made America better is still a matter of opinion. Granted without NAFTA we definitely wouldn't have seen the kind of grown between Mexico, Canada, and the United States, that we saw over the last 10 years. Although without NAFTA we probably would have seen a much larger portion of our exports sent to the rest of the world. I think the trade agreement was a good idea. I understand that a lot of the investments made in Mexico and Canada probably would have been invested elsewhere without the agreement, but not necessarily in the United States. Many of these companies that invested in Mexico and Canada more than likely still would have invested in a foreign market somewhere else.

http.//www.ita.doc.gov/td/industry/otea/nafta/CoverPage.pdf