The Pros And Cons Of NAFTA

Introduction Across America, the landscape of job opportunities has changed drastically since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. This trade agreement between the countries of Canada, the United States of America, and Mexico set out to eliminate tariffs on goods originating in one of the other countries. To those in power, the opportunities appeared endless, with minimal repercussions to affect the overwhelming growth that such an arrangement could bring to North America. In the process of shifting to this policy, as the old adage goes: “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.” While the country of Mexico benefited largely from the many industries that packed up from the United States

After an introduction to Elite Theory, this report will provide a background of NAFTA and its effects on Canada, Mexico, and the United States. This will show the state of trade in North America in the 1990’s, prior to NAFTA, and address the immediate impacts upon enacting NAFTA, which will show the inadequacies of the Elite Theory. Next, this report will provide an evaluation of NAFTA in present day, proving that the benefits promised did not occur quite how they were construed. Furthermore, this report will offer alternatives to NAFTA, developed with the intention of benefiting the United States more so than the current agreement. Lastly, this report will conclude with a recommendation moving

From the perspective of the United States, four main shifts occurred that negatively impacted the U.S. economy. First, 700,000 jobs shifted to Mexico from the United States (Faux, J. (2013, December 9)). The heavy manufacturing state of Michigan and the border states of California and Texas felt the brunt of the exodus of jobs along with other states who had a strong manufacturing presence (Faux, J. (2013, December 9)). While the U.S. did add some jobs along the border, these jobs were low paying retail and service positions that did not alleviate the loss resulting from NAFTA. Secondly, companies in the U.S. gained the ability to force workers to accept lesser pay with the threat of moving the company to Mexico where labor came at a massive discount (Faux, J. (2013, December 9)). This tactic did not stop with wages, but expanded to labor unions and tax incentives. Companies basically used the threat of moving jobs to Mexico as a bargaining chip to receive whatever they asked (Faux, J. (2013, December 9)). Thirdly, agriculture and small business markets in Mexico suffered from the influx of big corporations, resulting in millions of workers without employment (Faux, J. (2013, December 9)). This led to many of those workers illegally crossing the border into the U.S., driving down already lessened wages due to the underhanded tactics of the big corporations (Faux, J.