Assignment 2: NAFTA                                           Remember to put your name

GEOG 1982 (due Thurs. May 15)                              on your assignment

 

Introduced in 1994, NAFTA - the North America Free Trade Agreement - promised to lower tariffs and create jobs in Canada, Mexico, and the United States (see page 75 of your textbook). Fourteen years into the agreement, debates over the effectiveness, winners, and losers continue, and the internet is a good medium through which to learn about those debates.

 

This assignment will introduce you to a variety of perspectives about NAFTA and its fourteen-year history. There are both strong advocates of NAFTA and those who strongly oppose it.

Read all of the websites listed below. For each side (advocates, opposed) answer these questions:

 

  1. What is the basis of this position?
  2. What is the agenda of these individuals or organizations?
  3. How is history used in setting up each argument?
  4. Does the source adequately discuss the impacts of NAFTA on all of those who are affected by such trade agreements? Workers? Companies? Investors? Consumers? Tax payers? Governments? (for example)
  5. Is anyone left out of the discussion by this position? Do you think this is intentional?

 

Those who tout its success (advocates):

 

* The USDA and its Foreign Agricultural Service considers NAFTA a success for U.S. farmers

http://www.fas.usda.gov/itp/policy/nafta/nafta_backgrounder.htm

http://www.fas.usda.gov/info/factsheets/nafta.html

* Office of the United States Trade Representative ñ read the "NAFTA at ten" report

http://www.ustr.gov/Trade_Agreements/Regional/NAFTA/Section_Index.html

* Article by Carlos Gutierrez, U.S. Secretary of Commerce

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/29/AR2008022902608.html

 

Those who doubt its success (opposed):

 

* The Economic Policy Institute

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/bp173

* Noam Chomsky writes that "NAFTA is an executive agreement":

http://db.uwaterloo.ca/~alopez-o/politics/chomnafta.html

* The impacts of NAFTA and the FTAA according to the AFL-CIO

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/12/03/after-all-these-years-press-still-wrong-on-nafta/

* The perspective of Human Rights Watch, regarding the rights of labor under NAFTA

http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/04/nafta0416.htm

 

Write two to three sentences answering at least two of these questions:

Has NAFTA been successful, and as it fulfilled its promises?

How are we to judge the effectiveness of such an agreement in the face of changing economies and pressures around the world?

Whom did NAFTA benefit, and whom did it hurt?

Do you think the expansion of NAFTA as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is a good idea?

Have other supranational free-trade blocs (such as the EU or ASEAN) made NAFTA a necessity?

 

 

Additional background information on NAFTA may be found at the following sites:

 

* Globalization: Type "NAFTA" into the search window for a list NAFTA resources from About.comís Globalization pages.

 

* Global Policy Forum: This is the Global Policy Forumís globalization page. For a broader perspective on the ideas behind the promotion of NAFT (generally referred to as "market liberalization," or "neo-liberal," or "economic liberalization"), as well as criticisms of these ideas, click on the link "Economic Liberalization and Integration" http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/econ/index.htm

 

* Global Exchangeís site on the Free Trade Area of the Americaís is an activist-oriented page promoting critical perspectives on free trade, NAFTA, and FTAA.

 

* The official site of the FTAA