erican Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and late in that year the presidents of Mexico and the United States and the prime minister of Canada signed the NAFTA.5 If the agreement is ratified by the legislative branches of government in each of the three countries, NAFTA will be implemented, and virtually all trade barriers between the three countries will be eliminated by 2007, creating a single, unified North American market.6
Each of the three countries involved in NAFTA negotiations came to the table with differing national goals and differing perspectives on the meaning of an eventual free trade agreement. The United States entered the negotiations beset by staggering international trade deficits, a critical dependence on foreign energy supplies, and a fear that it would, over the coming 50 years, be excluded from a leading role in the international economy.7 Without any doubt, the Bush Administration looked to a North American free trade agreement as the Reagan Administration
5Brenda Dalglish, "Partners in Power," Maclean's. 14 December 1992, 28 30.
6"U.S., Canada, Mexico Reach North American Free Trade Agreement," Facts on File, 13 August 1992, 581 583.
7D. N. Thompson, "The Triad, Reciprocity, and Alliances," Business Quarterly, 55 (1990): 25 29.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 with Canada 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 have established production facilities in the United States, while American firms have, also in large numbers, either closed or scaled down their Canadian opera...