underlying sources of public anxiety. The remainder of this discussion will be structured as follows:
First, the nature of the NAFTA agreement will be outlined, and the arguments in favor of its passage briefly summarized. Second, consideration will be given, at some length, to the anxieties which the prospect of NAFTA have produced among much of the American public, and the sources of these anxieties will be analyzed. Third, the anticipated benefits, direct and indirect, of NAFTA will be presented in greater detail. Fourth, the prospective consequences, largely negative, of failure to enact NAFTA will be considered. In conclusion, the case in favor of NAFTA will be presented in the context of the overall prospects for the future of the American economy.
NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, is, as its name suggests, a proposal to create a free-trade zone, through the elimination of all tariff barriers at borders, which would extend throughout the entire North American continent. Although public discussion of NAFTA in the United States has concentrated almost entirely upon its consequences with respect to economic relations between the United States and Mexico, Canada is also a participant in the NAFTA agreement structure. If enacted, NAFTA would create the world's largest and richest free-trade zone, extending from the Yucatan Peninsula to the Arctic, embracing a
population upwards of three hundred fifty million people.
NAFTA does not call for the overnight elimination of existing trade barriers, but when the NAFTA process was completed, after a phase-in period of several years, the effect would be to free goods to move as freely between the United States, Mexico, and Canada, as they now move in interstate commerce within the United States. Tariff barriers between NAFTA members and the rest of the world would not be effected in any way by NAFTA itself, though they might eventually be effected by the GAT...