Is NAFTA good for the United States ?

Question

Is NAFTA good for the United States ?

Answer 1

Good and Bad, there are parts ofit, like the price of oil that we get from Canada that is good, especailly at todays prices!

Answer 2

NAFTA caters to corporations.  It is only good for them as it has put many Mexican citizens in poverty.  NAFTA has also cost American jobs as well.  Just put NAFTA and poverty in your search engine and both sides of the controversy will come up from legitimate sources.

NAFTA is not going away.  Globalization is here and is a part of the world elites agenda not just the USA.  The best decision any one of us can make is to find our nitch in this new world we live in.  We have to prepare our children through proper education so they don't fall into the lower end of the financial picture.  For as many middle income jobs that have been lost low income jobs have replaced them.  That is why you hear about new job creation.  There are however upper end positions that are being created as well but the person needs an education.  Other countries public school system are preparing youth for the future.  Only a handful of private schools in America are jumping in because the elite who created globalization policy realize this.  

It is time for all people to get politically involved.  Don't fall into the category of asking for government help in order to subsidize the poverty that is going to hit America.  That only will further the separation of rich and poor in America.

Answer 3

For the upper 2% for the rest No, many think that as long as they can get a TV for $500 it's all good, but when they lose their job to Mexico, then they start to complain. but  all the job loses were known before NAFTA was signed, but ignored because it served the 2% with political power..

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The Effect of George Bush’s NAFTA

On American Workers: 1991

Ladder Up or Ladder Down?

By Jeff Faux and Thea Lee

Introduction

A decision to support or not to support the Bush-Salinas-Mulroney version of a

North American Free Trade Agreement has little to do with the abstract arguments about

“free trade” and “protection.” It has everything to do with the living standards of the people

of the United States. If members of Congress are certain that the agreement produced by

the current trilateral negotiations will raise incomes and expand job opportunities in the

United States, they should accept it. If they are not, if there is any serious doubt, they

should reject it. America’s working families are already suffering enough loss of income

and job opportunity because of past policies based on unexamined economic theories that

seemed persuasive at the time. Given that experience, putting their economic future further

at risk - without a high degree of confidence

represent a betrayal of the public trust.

The issue before us now is not whether

that the outcomes will be favorable - would

the United States should trade with Mexico

and Canada or whether investment should be allowed to move freely within North America.

Canada and Mexico are already among our most important trading partners, and - as is

evident in all three countries - investment is already quite mobile. The question is how

increasing trade and investment should take place.

How the North American countries choose to integrate

measure define their course of economic development during

their economies will in some

the next several decades.

Two strategies confront us. One is modeled on the European path to integration, which

was slow and gradual, sensitive to the disparities of income and social institutions between

countries, and committed to achieving integration without penalizing workers. The other is

-a

the model implicit in the agreement proposed by the Bush, Salinas, and Mulroney

Administrations - to remove rapidly all remaining barriers to the flow of capital, goods,

and services across North American borders, leaving the fate of U.S. incomes, working

conditions,

result.

This

and environmental and social regulation to the economic and political forces that

paper will explore the probable outcomes for the U.S. labor force of the Bush-

Salinas-Mulroney North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Our conclusion is that

as presently designed the proposed free trade agreement will harm the United States’ longterm

economic competitiveness and put in jeopardy the jobs of hundreds of thousands of

American workers. It will also put downward pressure on the wages of millions more

Americans working in sectors not directly affected by the agreement. A substantial

restructuring of the overall agreement will be necessary in order to avoid serious long term

damage to the U.S. economy.

NAFTA’s Impact on the United States

The economic case for NAFTA rests primarily on two arguments: first, that NAFTA will

expand U.S. jobs because U.S. exports to Mexico will expand; second, that U.S. workers who

lose their jobs to imports from Mexico will benefit from better and higher-paying jobs.

U.S. Trade Representative Carla Hills, among others, has argued that the free trade

agreement will greatly increase U.S. exports to Mexico, and that these increased exports will

generate hundreds of thousands of new jobs for U.S. workers. To support this contention,

the U.S. Commerce Department released a study in August of 1991 that detailed state-bystate

increases in U.S. exports to Mexico (U.S. Dept. of Commerce, 1991). But the study, not

untypical of the evidence offered by the Administration in this debate, ignored the other

side of the coin: imports. Although U.S. exports to Mexico have risen rapidly since 1986, it

is also the case that U.S. imports from Mexico have been rising almost as fast (see Figure 1).

This occurs because the vast majority of U.S. exports to Mexico are capital goods and

components, not consumer goods. These goods are used mainly to produce goods for

export back to the United States, not for consumption by Mexican consumers. Total job

growth is generated by increases in net exports (the excess of exports over imports), not by

exports that turn around and come back as manufactured goods a few weeks or months

2

Answer 4

No next question.