We cannot talk about the significance of Mexico to the U.S. if we fail to talk about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). This agreement essentially enables Canada, the U.S., and Mexico to import and export goods among each other without any taxes. The current U.S. administration is threatening to leave the agreement because they believe it has costed many manufacturing jobs. However, multiple studies have shown that the agreement had little to no effect on the loss of jobs. “A 2014 report from the Peterson Institute for International Economics said that at most 5 percent of dislocated US workers could be traced to imports from Mexico. It said over four million Americans lose their jobs each year by plant shutdowns and mass …show more content…
president offered to cease the wall rhetoric in return for Pena Nieto to stop embarrassing him by publicly refusing to pay, I assess that Mexico will concede to restructuring NAFTA and the U.S. will concede to building the wall (Gillman, 2017).
I assess that in the next five years Mexico will have a new political party in power and it will begin taking those first hard steps out of turmoil. The PRI party will be dethroned by Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the leftist National Regeneration Movement (Morena) candidate, who has come second in the last two presidential elections. As I mentioned earlier, despite the PRI’s critical win in Mexico State, the people are talking and they are fed up with all of the corruption and violence. “Mr. Peña is just as unpopular in his home state as elsewhere. People blame him for failing to reduce corruption, impunity and insecurity. They hate his government’s decision to increase petrol prices sharply this year” (Economist, 2017). Furthermore, Pena Nieto’s approval rating dramatically decreased when he hosted the U.S. president in Mexico City. In response to that, López Obrador, who is a huge critic of the U.S. president, turned the Mexican people’s frustrations and used it to expand his following by criticizing Trump in a Washington Post op-ed (Naverrette Jr., 2017). “Obrador is running on a Mexico-First platform that has been very critical of US President Trump’s rhetoric and could
In 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was enacted between two industrial countries and a yet still developing nation. This was an agreement that was the first of its kind due to the relationship that the countries had and the investment opportunities that it presented. The United States, Canada, and developing Mexico decided to work towards eliminating most tariffs and non-tariff barriers between the three in order to increase the flow of trade in goods and services. Since its enactment NAFTA has led to the providing of over 40 million more jobs throughout the countries, and it has also tripled merchandise trade between the three participants to an astounding $946 billion USD in 2008 (NAFTA Now). However even then it is still not very clear whether enacting NAFTA was worth the time and effort and in fact the United States may have been better off not having joined NAFTA.
The North American Free Trade Agreement, commonly known as the NAFTA, is a trade agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico launched to enable North America to become more competitive in the global marketplace (Amadeo, 2011). The NAFTA is regarded as “one of the most successful trade agreements in history” for its impact on increases in agricultural trade and investment among the three contracting nations (North American Free Trade Agreement, 2011). Supporters and opponents of the NAFTA have argued the effects of the agreement on participating nations since its inception; yet, close examination proves that NAFTA has had a relatively positive impact on the economies of the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
Last but not least, NAFTA has given United States access to much needed cheap resources. As a huge manufacturing country, the U.S. is always in demand of natural resources. Canada and Mexico, on the other hand, are resource-rich countries and over 12% of their exports is petroleum products (The Observatory of Economic Complexity). NAFTA has lowered the tariffs thus giving Americans more access to its neighbours’ oil reserves. Futhermore, when signing NAFTA, Canada agreed that they will not reduce oil exports to the U.S. even during shortage, unless Canada cuts its own supplies. That is, the percentage of oil exports to the U.S. cannot be changed. The United States therefore receives less impacts from fluctuating world oil price, and is guaranteed a steady supply of oil for its industries. In addition to that, NAFTA makes it possible for the U.S. to take advantage of the large educated work force in Mexico. American businesses set up factories along Mexican boundary and employ local workers to assemble products from imported U.S. components, the final products are then exported back to the U.S. Known as maquiladora, these factories have the worst working condition in North America (Mexican Rural Development Research Reports). The workers have no human rights or health
Donald J. Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for the American 2016 Presidential election, has proposed building a complete and securely patrolled border wall along the 700+ mile border between American and Mexico. Trump has called for complete cooperation and collaboration from Mexico’s government. However, ex-Mexican President Fox, and current Mexican governmental leaders, have stated that they will have no part in helping to finance and build a border wall. This has led Trump to provoke the Mexican government and state that he’ll only build the wall higher if Mexico does not cooperate (Justin & Stanley, 2016). As such, Trump is creating a political mess within American and
NAFTA, North American Free Trade Agreement, is a treaty between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. It is very important especially to American farmers, because it allows the farmers to ship major amounts of corn, cotton, rice, and soybeans to Canada and Mexico. CEO Dwight Roberts said, “There is nothing better going on for the commodities we grow than NAFTA. We are very fortunate that we are next door to Mexico, a country of 120 million people who buy so much of our commodities. For rice, Mexico is the number one market in the world.”
American manufacturing jobs were lost as U.S. firms used NAFTA’s new foreign investor privileges to relocate production to Mexico to take advantage of that country’s lower wages and weaker environmental standards. U.S. job erosion worsened as a new flood of NAFTA imports swamped gains in exports, creating a massive new trade deficit that equated to an estimated net loss of one million U.S. jobs by
A lot of people are aware of the fact that Raul Cervantes, Mexico’s attorney general, received a big helping hand to gain his position from Enrique because his cousin is the judicial advisor for Enrique. Pena Nieto wants someone to be in favor of his best interests and stick by his morals for the rest of his term, so it’s evident to say that he found values they mutually agreed upon. A lot of the PRI members have been found guilty of illegal acts such as money-laundering and embezzlement, which just begs the question: “Who’s to come?” Mexico under the PRI just leads to corruption as PRI officials take advantage of their power and use it to their own benefit. Perhaps Mexico was just easier to run back when they had a monopoly, but whatever the case is, there needs to be a change in the political
NAFTA has been a hot topic of conversation over the last two decades. This agreement has many implications that not only affect Americans, but also the global market. In the United States, many people have been adversely affected by NAFTA. This is because they have lost jobs and some industries, such as the automobile industry, has gone to other countries because of cheaper costs. There are many advantages and disadvantages to this pact. Since NAFTA has harmed people in the United States, many people believe that we should get rid of it. On the other hand, others have pointed to the increasing global domestic product (GDP) in the United States, Mexico, and Canada as support to keep the agreement. The objective of this paper to weigh these pro’s and con’s and make a logical conclusion to what we should do about NAFTA in the future.
Unlike the United States 7.25/hr minimum wage, Mexico’s minimum wage is set at just few dollars per day. Careless of the American working class, large corporations closed factories in the US and moved them south of the border to Mexico where they could pay workers a minimum wage and not have to conform to regulations. Since Mexico was added, the US manufacturing sector has outsourced five million jobs (Blecker). Many of these workers did not have a backup plan or funds to support them after they lost their job therefore they fell into extreme poverty. Sadly, these workers could not provide for their families and struggled to survive. Not only did NAFTA ruin the US manufacturing job market, the trade deficit between the USA and Mexico grew exponentially and now sits at an unfathomable amount. The deficit took a turn for the worse due to NAFTA, the United states had a 1.7 billion dollar surplus in 1993 (prior to Mexico’s addition), to a 54 billion dollar deficit by 2014 (Mcbride). Clearly, the United States lost a significant amount of currency due to NAFTA. Although the US is commonly on the losing side of trade deals, NAFTA is by far the most detrimental to the
In fact, trade with Canada and Mexico supports 14 million American jobs and generates $1.3 trillion annually in goods and services traded across our borders. However, with the implementation of trade agreements such as the NAFTA, the world has become more interconnected, and citizens must be aware of the effects such trade agreements have on their living standards and job security.
This article outlines a difference of opinion between former Mexico President Vicente Fox, and the president of the United States Donald Trump. The difference of opinion is over Mr. Trump building a wall dividing Mexico and the U.S., where Fox gets frustrated at is how Trump wants Mexico to pay for the wall, and how speaks down on Mexico. Fox also hopes that the current president Nieto does not back down to Trump's order on the matter, and that he stands ground, telling Trump to “Go to hell”.
Many mexicans have had enough and they are ready to speak truth to the power of a corrupt government that wrongs the people. “ ‘I come in a sign of protest, I’m in a state of mourning for Mexico, I’m very sad due to everything that is happening, It's a unprecedented cynicism, a terrible impunity’ said Maria Teresa Rodriguez to BBC Mundo” ( Paullier, Miles marchan contra Peña Nieto “para que despierte México”). The majority of protest you see call for the resignation of Peña Nieto. There is so much corruption that many can’t believe it, so many people stealing and so many impoverished citizens. The economy doesn't progress, the peso keeps falling, his corruption scandals keep hunting and more. Showing how inept he truly is. The problem is that many mexicans are conformists and don’t believe we can truly change anything. The goal in most protests as well is to also convince people to protest and join them. They call upon other mexicans to wake up and protest so true changes can come to Mexico’s democracy. Once the majority of the Mexican people wake up and unite they can truly speak truth to power and change Peña Nieto’s corrupt ways and the state of the government. Meanwhile all these protest and all his mistakes from the start of his term up till now have truly hindered his reputation as president; Making him and his democratic system
NAFTA has been a modest success to the extent it was designed to benefit its member nations. In general, the agreement has helped to boost environmental standards. It has improved conditions in Mexico and helped to lower prices in the US (Cherniwchan, 2017). It has also helped to create a special relationship between the US and Mexico, which could be valuable down the road. However, it has also created something of an offshoring and outsourcing crisis, which has crippled many different rural communities in the US. There are entire communities that depended on factories that have been moved out of town. This is difficult on these communities and surely will lead to long-term problems in the US (Cherniwchan, 2017).
In the article “NAFTA at 20: Overviews and Trade Effects” by Villarreal and Fergusson, we are given and account of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Specifically, the article is broken down into four main sections. They are: trade liberalization before the implementation of NAFTA, an overview of NAFTA provisions, trade trends and economic effects, and policy considerations respectively. In each of these sections, the article discusses in detail how what NAFTA is and how it has affected the US, Canadian, and Mexican economies. Therefore, let us briefly examine NAFTA.
The U.S. goods and services trade deficit with NAFTA was $116 billion in 2007.” The economic advantages of NAFTA are substantial, in 2015 the trade administration has stated that trade had increased to $1.15 trillion. With such a drastic increase this has shown how valuable NAFTA is to the U.S. and certainly Mexico. According to the Foreign Trade Analysis, many businesses within Mexico rely on the trade agreement in order to ship their goods and services to the U.S. and Canada without increased tariffs, for example, the Mexican local-content requirements.