Week 3: CheckPoint - North American Free Trade Agreement
Grade: 15/15
I submitted this as an attachment with formal APA formatting.
While the
prospect of free trade certainly stands to benefit the U.S. Economy the
NAFTA has many damaging aspects. In particular is the potential
to lose many jobs to Mexico and Canada where labor is cheaper.
Secondly, due to the Chapter 11 provision there is the concern that
environment is being damaged. Finally, NAFTA has resulted in a
significant influx of illegal immigration to the United States.
With the ability to trade much more freely with
Mexico, and their close proximity, they become an ideal place to move
manufacturing jobs to harness reduced labor costs. The tariffs,
and other prior existing trade restrictions before NAFTA, made moving
manufacturing jobs to Mexico unprofitable. With the loss of jobs
to Mexico this becomes a significant cost to the United States through
additional unemployment. (North American Free Trade Agreement, n.d.,
Controversy section)
An even larger concern is the Chapter 11 provision
of the NAFTA that can be extremely damaging to the environment.
"For example Methanex, a Canadian corporation, filed a $970 million
suit against the United States, claiming that a Californian ban on
MTBE, a substance that had found its way into many wells in the state,
was hurtful to the corporation's sales of methanol" (North American
Free Trade Agreement, n.d., Chapter 11 section)." This hurts the
United States as regulations are less likely to be made to protect the
health of their citizens. (North American Free Trade Agreement,
n.d., Chapter 11 section)
Finally, the amount of illegal immigration from
Mexico has substantially increased since NAFTA's implementation.
This is certainly partially due to wages in Mexico dropping by
20%. This has again placed an enhanced burden on the United
States economy to sustain an illegal immigrant population, as well as
the expense of increased border patrol.
References
North American Free Trade Agreement (n.d.). Retrieved on September 21,
2005, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement
© Erik Smith 2005
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