In 1993, president bill clinton signed the north american free trade agreement (nafta). choose one of the nations involved, and discuss the positive and negative effects nafta has had on its economy, imports, and exports. do you think nafta is a successful agreement? why or why not?

There are a few pros and cons of the NAFTA agreement.

Pros: It increased trade between US, Canada, and Mexico. Trade between the three countries increased to $1.14 trillion in 2015. This increased our economic output boosting US growth by about.5% a year. This then created lots of jobs about 5 million new American jobs. Also now there was now more foreign investment in the US businesses which increased profit. And finally this agreement lowered prices because of the loss of tariffs. We relied less on the middle east for oil and more on Mexico this also reduced gas prices as transportation was cheaper. Cons: NAFTA Also made the US lose a lot of jobs we lost fewer jobs than we gained apparently but still it was about 500,000 to 750,00 jobs which are substantial. This was because manufacturers moved to Mexico as labor is much cheaper there, this job migration negatively affected wages as well. Companies would lower wages and threaten their workers to move to Mexico if they unionised this worked and a huge chunk of American. Manufacturing companies do this. NAFTA also put about 1.3 million Mexican farmers out of work causing them to be forced to illegally migrate to the US as they were desperate for work. Illegal immigrant numbers spiked after NAFTA. The Mexican workers who stayed behind in Mexico worked for these US companies and are treated badly they work in substandard conditions for terrible wages and 30% of Mexicos labor force works in these jobs. They also degrade Mexicos environment to lower costs causing 36 billion a year in pollution and cutting down 630,000 hectares of forest a year also contributing to global warming.

So overall it increases trade, profit and growth of these companies as well as cheapening products but people lose jobs lose their rights in the workplace and is degrading the Mexican environment.