Over the course of the United States' history and its growth as an industrial powerhouse, the nation has always sought to maintain relations with other countries in hopes of gaining added revenue. With economic foreign policies like the Open Door Policy, easing trade relations with China and paving the way for Chinese-American trade in our world today, America's national agenda of international trade has largely influenced its foreign policy. Among these is NAFTA, an agreement proposed by Ronald Reagan during his presidency, in hopes of securing a North American common market.
However, this trade agreement had an extensive series of preceding acts, that opened up the dialogue between the United States and the neighboring North American countries, which eventually led to the passage of NAFTA. It first began with the Congressional passage of the Trade and Tariff Act in 1984, removing Congress's role in negotiating free trade agreements, and rather delegating that job to the president, with Congress simply providing a yes or no on the whole agreement. This initial act streamlined the process of negotiation, and allowed for a more fluid dialogue for trade. This was immediately utilized with the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement signed in 1989, after negotiations with the Canadian Prime Minister and President Reagan.
Following Reagan's presidency, the successor President Bush moved to the southern bordering nation and began negotiations with Mexico under the Trade and Tariff Act, which was crucial because Mexican tariffs on imports were substantially high. The dialogue across all three nations eventually led to the request for a trilateral agreement, which would move to become NAFTA, which was finally signed by the Presidents and Prime Minister of the three respective countries.
The concept behind the Agreement was to promote economic growth among the countries by speeding up the process of moving goods and service, and has left a lasting impact on the North American continent in our world today. On a larger scale, NAFTA has made the continent the largest free trade area in the world with respect to GDP, and has stimulated competition amongst the three nations on the global marketplace.
However, throughout the course of its existence in economic policy, it has been criticized for temporal unemployment, and the loss of manufacturing jobs in the United States. Average wages in Mexico have declined steadily since its passage, and new environmental, health, and public interest problems have sprung up from the Agreement. As a result, it is evident that political dialogue between the neighboring countries should be constant, and terms should always be negotiated, to evaluate the success and fulfillment of the policy's goals.
Sources:
http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1868997,00.html
https://www.thebalance.com/history-of-nafta-3306272
https://www.citizen.org/our-work/globalization-and-trade/north-american-free-trade-agreement-nafta
This was a very interesting article about NAFTA and its influence and impact in the modern world. I enjoyed learning about NAFTA, as well as both its pros and cons. Of course, this opens up the debate that whether the GDP output and competition stimulated by NAFTA is worth the negatives such as the job loss. In my opinion it is, since America has always wanted to maintain that added revenue that you mentioned, and being connected with the global market is the way to do so.
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