The United States is beset by staggering international trade deficits, a critical dependence on foreign energy supplies, and a fear that it will, over the coming 50 years, be excluded from a leading role in the international economy (Thompson, 1990, pp. 25 29). Many of the goals of the Bush Administration, while they derive from these imperatives, will not likely be clearly stated for the American people, but will, rather, be clouded in deceptive rhetoric.
With little doubt, the Bush Administration looks to a North American free trade agreement as the Reagan Administration viewed the Canada United States Free Trade Agreement a way out of the country's international trade deficit. The Reagan Administration hopes were dashed to a great extent because one result of the Agreement was not a combination of a massive increase in American exports to Canada, together with a reduction in Canadian exports to the United States. Because of the lower wage rates and lower taxation levels in the United States, Canadian firms in large numbers have either relocated to the United States or they have established production facilities in the United States, while American firms have, also in large numbers, eit
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