As the marketplace becomes more global, corporations are forced to find ways of retaining competitive advantage. Lower costs, increased profit margins, and competitive advantage are all necessary to compete in the global market. One phenomena that these objectives have spurred is an increasing degree of free trade, i.e., a reduction of trade barriers, tariffs, quotas and government legislation restricting free and open trade. In line with this development, many trade pacts or agreements have emerged during the past decade, including one of the most controversial, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA became an official piece of trade legislation on January 1, 1994 and includes Canada, Mexico and the United States. The agreement was designed to help slowly eradicate tariffs and other trade barriers on goods manufactured and sold in North America. The passing of NAFTA created the world’s second biggest free trade region, in comparison to the world’s largest, the European Economic Area which is a similar trade agreement encompassing members from the European Union and the European Free Trade Association. In all three countries involved in NAFTA, legislative debates ensued because many interests involved considered NAFTA detrimental to workers and jobs. In the U.S. this was especially true where labor and trade unions were concerned, “When the details of NAFTA were being considered and debated by Congress, American labor and trade unions engaged in a massive lobbying effort to first prohibit passage of NAFTA, and second, to incorporate into NAFTA specific provisions which were regarded as necessary to protect American jobs and workers and to reinforce the authority of unions themselves within workplace environments” (Kahane 395-400). This analysis will review the benefits of NAFTA while covering issues like protectionism, tariffs, quotas and free trade. Also included in the analysis will be the impact NA...