NAFTA:

North American Free Trade Agreement: The Democrats vs. My Opinion

NAFTA began on Jan. 1, 1994, as a agreement to remove barriers to trade and investment among the countries of the United States, Canada and Mexico. For the United States and Mexico many tarriffs were eliminated over the years. This successfully allowing free-trade with Mexico by January 2008. The Agricultural free-trade provisions with Canada, we had since 1989, were incorporated into NAFTA. Therefore, by January 1998 all agricultural tariffs with Canada, with a few exceptions, were tariff free. Canada and Mexico also reached there own tariff rulings between there countries under the NAFTA provision.

What do the Democrats mean when they say that jobs will be created if we pull out of NAFTA? This is so very untrue. NAFTA has nothing to do with job loss. Actually more was exported than imported, so how can it be said that jobs were lost? Canada is the number one country we export too, with Mexico being number two. We would loose about $380 billion yearly in trade revenue alone.

Is it a sound decision to pull out of NAFTA when it has such a huge potential of oil revenues for the United States from both Canada and Mexico? About 900 billion barrels per year from Canada in 2007, 600 billion from Mexico alone.

I'm not sure what Obama or Clinton is actually thinking. I believe that they need to re-think their thoughts on NAFTA and the implications that changing anything about it could bring on the United States. Because, I believe the United States would suffer economically from such a drastic decision. We certainly do need the access to the oil from both Canada and Mexico. And what about them being our largest importers? In my eyes it seems to be a pretty good situation for us at this time. I realize there are some things in NAFTA that may not be so appealing. But not everything is perfect. What are your thoughts?


Referances:

www.fas.usda.gov
www.ibdeditorials.com