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NAFTA: Not for America Essay

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America’s economy is flat lining. We are bleeding jobs and hemorrhaging revenue. One out of every seven citizens is on financial life support and our government needs to do something stat. One of the first steps in the road to recovery is repealing the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, because it is dangerous to our economic stability and future. NAFTA took effect on January 1, 1994 with the culmination of all quota and tariff repeals on January 1, 2008. This agreement was designed to expand trade between Canada, Mexico, and the United States by reducing restrictions imposed by tariffs and encouraging foreign direct investment in the developing economies. Some of the goals have been achieved since NAFTA’s …show more content…

Now, many of these banking groups are owned by foreign investors, despite attempted safeguards. This ownership has provided investors leverage and influence over the actions of the government because the government owes an exorbitant amount to these banks (Daniel Lederman). The same argument can be made about the United States’ government. This influence can be seen across the board as many decisions now seem to favor only a select few, forgetting about the ramifications for the many. Arguably the most notable change has been in terms of lost employment for Americans. Between 1994 and 2002, 897,000 American jobs were outsourced to Mexico (Hufbauer and Schott). This was 400,000 more jobs than the highest projected estimates. This outsourcing disproportionately affects our least educated members of the workforce who hold make up 43 percent of our jobs. 53 percent of the members of this demographic have been displaced. However, the effects are harder felt in some states such as North Carolina and Arkansas where 80 percent of blue collar workers have been affected in one manner or another (Hufbauer and Schott). As jobs are funneled out of America into less regulated Mexico, the jobs that do remain pay less. Average weekly wages dropped from $800 to $683 which added up to $7.6 billion in outsourced wages in 2004. The jobs that are outsourced pay Mexicans a significant amount less than their American counterparts, approximately 87%

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