NAFTA's Winners and Losers

3/6/2017 NAFTA'sWinnersAndLosers|Investopedia
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NAFTA's Winners And Losers

By David Floyd | Updated February 21, 2017 1:10 PM EST SHARE
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is a pact eliminating most trade barriers
between the U.S., Canada and Mexico that went into effect on January 1, 1994. Some of its Trading Center
provisions were implemented immediately; others were staggered over the following 15 years.
Today, just over a month into its 24th year, NAFTA appears to be on its last legs. U.S. President
Donald Trump repeatedly attacked it during his campaign, and two days after his inauguration, he Partner Links
promised to begin renegotiating the agreement, saying he expected "a very good result for Mexico,
for the United States, for everybody involved."
Failing that, he has previously said he would pull out of the bloc a relatively simple process,
according to article 2205 of the treaty: "A Party may withdraw from this Agreement six months after
it provides written notice of withdrawal to the other Parties. If a Party withdraws, the Agreement
shall remain in force for the remaining Parties." Experts disagree about whether Trump would need
Congress' approval to abandon the agreement.
Why do Trump and many of his supporters see NAFTA as "the worst trade deal maybe ever," when HOT DEFINITIONS
others see its main shortcoming as a lack of ambition and the solution as yet more regional
integration? What was promised? What was delivered? Who are NAFTA's winners, and who are its
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losers? Capital Gains Tax
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Skip to section Rule 72(t)
1. United States 2. Mexico Initial Public Offering - IPO
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/northamericanfreetradeagreement.asp Debt/Equity Ratio 1/22
3. Canada 4. China, Tech and the Crisis Debt/Equity Ratio

What Did NAFTA Accomplish?

Trade Volumes
NAFTA's immediate aim was to increase cross-border commerce in North America, and in that
respect it undoubtedly succeeded. By lowering or eliminating tariffs and reducing some nontariff
barriers,, such as Mexican local-content requirements, NAFTA spurred a surge in trade and
barriers
investment. Most of the increase came from U.S.-Mexico trade, which totaled $481.5 billion in 2015,
and U.S.-Canada trade, which totaled $518.2 billion. Trade between Mexico and Canada, though by
far the fastest-growing channel between 1993 and 2015, totaled just $34.3 billion.
That combined $1.0 trillion in trilateral trade has increased by 258.5% since 1993 in nominal terms.
The real that is, inflation
inflation-adjusted
-adjusted increase was 125.2%.
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Trade volumes (million USD)

Nominal Partner Links
Channel 2015 1993 Real increase*
increase
U.S.-Canada $518,217 $199,184 160.2% 63.5%
U.S.-Mexico $481,543 $85,224 465.0% 255.0%
Mexico-Canada $34,344 $4,052 747.6% 432.5%
Trilateral $1,034,104 $288,460 258.5% 125.2%
*Adjusted for inflation using BLS core CPI
CPI;; source: Mexican Embassy in Canada
It is probably safe to give NAFTA at least part of the credit for doubling real trade among its
signatories. Unfortunately that's where the easy assessments of the deal's effects end. HOT DEFINITIONS
Beta
Economic Growth
Capital Gains Tax
From 1993 to 2015, the U.S.'s real per-capita gross domestic product (GDP) grew 39.3% to $51,638 Buy Limit Order
(2010 USD).
USD). Canada's per-capita GDP grew 40.3% to $50,001, and Mexico's grew 24.1% to $9,511. In Rule 72(t)
other words, Mexico's output per person has grown more slowly than that of Canada or the U.S., Initial Public Offering - IPO
despite the fact that it was barely a fifth of its neighbors' to begin with. Normally one would expect Debt/Equity Ratio
an emerging market economy's growth to outpace that of developed economies.
RealpercapitaGDP(19932015)
Mexico Canada U.S.
$50,000
$40,000
$30,000
$20,000
$10,000
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1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014
2010USD
Partner Links
Source:WorldBank/FRED CreatedwithDatawrapper
Can We Know?
Does that mean that Canada and the U.S. are NAFTA's winners, and Mexico is its loser? Perhaps, but
if so, why did Trump debut his campaign in June 2015 with, "When do we beat Mexico at the border?
They're laughing at us, at our stupidity. And now they are beating us economically"?
Because, in a way, Mexico does beat the U.S. at the border. Prior to NAFTA, the trade balance in
goods between the two countries was modestly in favor of the U.S. Today Mexico sells close to $60 HOT DEFINITIONS
billion more to the U.S. than it buys from its northern neighbor. NAFTA is an enormous and
enormously complicated deal; looking at economic growth can lead to one conclusion, while
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looking at the balance of trade leads to another. Capital Gains Tax
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Even if NAFTA's effects are not easy to see, however, a few winners and losers are reasonably clear. Rule 72(t)
Initial Public Offering - IPO
United States
United States Debt/Equity Ratio

Jobs (skip to top)
top)
When Bill Clinton signed the bill authorizing NAFTA in 1993, he said the trade deal "means jobs.
American jobs, and good-paying American jobs." His independent opponent in the 1992 election,
Ross Perot, had warned that the flight of jobs across the southern border would produce a "giant
sucking sound."
At 4.8% in January, the unemployment rate is lower than it was at the end of 1993 (6.5%). It fell
steadily from 1994 to 2001, and while it picked up following the tech bubble's burst, it did not reach
its pre-NAFTA level again until October 2008. The fallout from the financial crisis kept it above 6.5%
until March 2014.
Finding a direct link between NAFTA and overall employment trends is difficult. The partially union-
funded Economic Policy Institute estimated in 2014 that 851,700 net jobs had been displaced by the Trading Center
U.S.'s trade deficit with Mexico, which amounted to 0.6% of the U.S. labor force at the end of 2013. In
a 2015 report,
report, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) said that NAFTA "did not cause the huge job
losses feared by the critics." On the other hand, it allowed that "in some sectors, trade-related Partner Links
effects could have been more significant, especially in those industries that were more exposed to
the removal of tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, such as the textile, apparel, automotive, and
agriculture industries."
NAFTA's implementation has coincided with a 30% drop in manufacturing employment, from 17.7
million jobs at the end of 1993 to 12.3 million at the end of 2016.
HOT DEFINITIONS
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Capital Gains Tax
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Rule 72(t)
U.S.manufacturingjobs(19932016) Debt/Equity Ratio

18,000,000
17,000,000
16,000,000
15,000,000
14,000,000
13,000,000
12,000,000
1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016
Atyearend2016figureispreliminary
Trading Center
Source:BLS CreatedwithDatawrapper
Whether NAFTA is directly responsible for this decline is difficult to say, however. The automotive Partner Links
industry is usually considered to be one of the hardest-hit by the agreement; yet although the U.S.
vehicle market was immediately opened up to Mexican competition, employment in the sector grew
for years after NAFTA's introduction, peaking at nearly 1.3 million in October 2000. Jobs began to slip
away at that point, and losses grew steeper with the financial crisis. At its low in June 2009,
American auto manufacturing employed just 623,000 people. While that figure has since risen to
948,000, it remains 27% below its pre-NAFTA level.
Anecdotal evidence supports the idea that these jobs went to Mexico. Wages in Mexico are a fraction
of what they are in the U.S. All major American car makers now have factories south of the border,
and prior to Trump's twitter campaign against offshoring
offshoring,, a few were openly planning to ship more HOT DEFINITIONS
jobs abroad. Yet while the job losses are tough to deny, they may be less severe than in a
hypothetical NAFTA-less world. Beta
Capital Gains Tax
The CRS notes that "many economists and other observers have credited NAFTA with helping U.S. Buy Limit Order
manufacturing industries, especially the U.S. auto industry, become more globally competitive
Rule 72(t)
through the development of supply chains."
chains." Carmakers did not move their entire operations to
Mexico; they now straddle the border. A 2011 working paper by the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Initial Public Offering - IPO
Research estimates that a U.S. import from Mexico contains 40% U.S. content. For Canada the Debt/Equity Ratio
corresponding figure is 25%. Meanwhile it is 4% for China and 2% for Japan.
ShareofU.S.productioninimports
+
Trading Center
Source:HongKongInstituteforMonetaryResearch,2011valuesforEU27areaveraged
Partner Links
CreatedwithDatawrapper
While thousands of U.S. auto workers undoubtedly lost their jobs as a result of NAFTA, they might
have fared worse without it. By integrating supply chains across North America, keeping a significant
share of production in the U.S. became an option for car makers. Otherwise they may have been
unable to compete with Asian rivals, causing even more jobs to depart. "Without the ability to move
lower-wage jobs to Mexico we would have lost the whole industry," UC San Diego economist Gordon
Hanson told the New York Times in March 2016. On the other hand, it may be impossible to know
what would have happened in a hypothetical scenario.
HOT DEFINITIONS
Garment manufacturing is another industry that was particularly hard-hit by offshoring. Total
employment in the sector has declined by nearly 85% since NAFTA was signed, but according to the Beta
Commerce Department, Mexico was only the sixth largest source of textile imports from January to Capital Gains Tax
November 2016 ($4.1 billion), behind China ($35.9 b), Vietnam ($10.5 b), India ($6.7 b), Bangladesh Buy Limit Order
($5.1 b) and Indonesia ($4.6 b). Not only are none of these other countries members of NAFTA none
Rule 72(t)
has a free trade agreement with the U.S.
Automotiveandtextilejobs(19932016) Debt/Equity Ratio

Motorvehiclesandparts Apparel
1,200,000
1,000,000
800,000
600,000
400,000
200,000
1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016
Atyearend2016figureispreliminary
Trading Center
Source:BLS CreatedwithDatawrapper
Prices Partner Links
An important point that often gets lost in assessments of NAFTA's impacts is its effects on prices. The
Consumer Price Index (CPI),
(CPI), a measure of inflation based on a basket of goods and services, rose by
65.6% from December 1993 to December 2016, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).(BLS).
During the same period, however, apparel prices fell 7.5%. Still, the decline in garment prices is no
easier to pin directly on NAFTA than the decline in garment manufacturing.
Because people with lower incomes spend a larger portion of their earnings on clothes and other
goods that are cheaper to import than to produce domestically, they would probably suffer the most
from a turn towards protectionism just as many of them did from trade liberalization. According to HOT DEFINITIONS
a 2015 study by Pablo Fajgelbaum
and Amit K. Khandelwal, the average real income loss from completely shutting off trade would be Beta
4% for the highest-earning 10% of the U.S. population, but 69% for the poorest 10%. Capital Gains Tax
Buy Limit Order
Immigration
Rule 72(t)
Part of the justification for NAFTA was that it would reduce illegal immigration from Mexico to the Debt/Equity Ratio
U.S. The number of Mexican immigrants of any legal status living in the U.S. nearly doubled from
1980 to 1990, when it reached an unprecedented 4.3 million. Boosters argued that uniting the U.S.
and Mexican markets would lead to gradual convergence in wages and living standards, reducing
Mexicans' motive to cross the Rio Grande. Mexico's president at the time, Carlos Salinas de Gortiari,
said the country would "export goods, not people."
Instead the number of Mexican immigrants more than doubled again from 1990 to 2000, when it
approached 9.2 million. According to PewPew,, the flow has reversed, at least temporarily: 140,000 more
Mexicans left the U.S. than entered it from 2009 to 2014, likely due to the effects of the financial
crisis. One reason NAFTA did not cause the expected reduction in immigration was the peso crisis of
1994-1995, which sent the Mexican economy into recession
recession.. Another is that reducing Mexican corn
tariffs did not prompt Mexican corn farmers to plant other, more lucrative crops; it prompted them
to give up farming. A third is that the Mexican government did not follow through with promised
infrastructure investments, which largely confined the pact's effects on manufacturing to the north Trading Center
of the country.
MexicanimmigrantsintheU.S.(19002015) Partner Links
10,000,000
8,000,000
6,000,000
4,000,000
2,000,000 HOT DEFINITIONS
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1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Capital Gains Tax
Source:MigrationPolicyInstitute
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Rule 72(t)
Trade Balance and Volume Initial Public Offering - IPO

Debt/Equity Ratio
Critics of NAFTA commonly focus on the U.S.'s trade balance with the country. While the U.S. enjoys a
slight advantage in services trade,
trade, exporting $30.8 billion in 2015 while importing $21.6 billion, its
overall trade balance with the country is negative due to a yawning $58.8 billion 2016 deficit in
merchandise trade. That compares to a surplus of $1.7 billion in 1993 (in 1993 USD, the 2016 deficit
was $36.1 billion).
But while Mexico is "beating us economically" in a mercantile sense, imports were not solely
responsible for the 264% real growth in merchandise trade from 1993 to 2016. Real exports to Mexico
more than tripled during that period, growing by 213%; imports outpaced them, however, at 317%.
U.S.tradebalancewithMexico,goods(19932016)
Nominal Real
$0
Trading Center
$10
$20
$30
Partner Links
$40
$50
$60
$70
1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016
BillionUSDrealdata=1993USD(BLScoreCPI)
Source:CensusBureau CreatedwithDatawrapper
HOT DEFINITIONS
The U.S.'s balance in services trade with Canada is positive: it imported $30.2 billion in 2015 and
exported $57.3 billion. Its merchandise trade balance is negative the U.S. imported $9.1 billion Beta
more in goods from Canada than it exported in 2016 but the surplus in services trade eclipses the Capital Gains Tax
deficit in merchandise trade. The U.S.'s total trade surplus with Canada was $11.9 billion in 2015. Buy Limit Order
Rule 72(t)
U.S.tradebalancewithCanada,goods(19932016) Debt/Equity Ratio

Nominal Real
$0
$10
$20
$30
$40
$50
$60
$70
1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016
BillionUSDrealdata=1993USD(BLScoreCPI)
Trading Center
Source:CensusBureau CreatedwithDatawrapper
Real goods exports to Canada grew by 50% from 1993 to 2016; real goods imports grew by 41%. It Partner Links
would appear that NAFTA improved the U.S.'s trade position vis--vis Canada. In fact the two
countries had already had a free trade agreement in place since 1988, but the pattern holds: the
U.S.'s merchandise trade deficit with Canada was even steeper in 1987.
Growth
If NAFTA had any net effect on the overall economy, it was barely perceptible. A 2003 report by the
Congressional Budget Office concluded that the deal "increased annual U.S. GDP, but by a very small
amount probably no more than a few billion dollars, or a few hundredths of a percent." The CRS
cited that report in 2015, suggesting it hadn't come to a different conclusion. HOT DEFINITIONS
NAFTA displays the classic free-trade quandary: diffuse benefits with concentrated costs. While the
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economy as a whole may have seen a slight boost, certain sectors and communities experienced Capital Gains Tax
profound disruption. A town in the Southeast loses hundreds of jobs when a textile mill closes, but Buy Limit Order
hundreds of thousands of people find their clothes marginally cheaper. Depending on how you
Rule 72(t)
quantify it, the overall economic gain is probably greater, but barely perceptible at the individual
level; the overall economic loss is small in the grand scheme of things, but devastating for those it Debt/Equity Ratio
affects directly.
Mexico
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For optimists in Mexico in 1994, NAFTA seemed to be full of promise. The deal was in a fact an
extension of the 1988 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, and it was the first to link an emerging
market economy to developed ones. The country had recently undergone tough reforms, beginning
a transition from the kind of economic policies one-party states pursue to free-market orthodoxy.
NAFTA supporters argued that tying the economy in with those of its richer northern neighbors
would lock in those reforms and boost economic growth, eventually leading to convergence in living
standards between the three economies.
Almost immediately, a currency crisis struck. Between the fourth quarter of 1994 and the second Trading Center
quarter of 1995, local-currency GDP shrank by 9.5%. Despite President Salinas' prediction that the
country would begin exporting "goods, not people," emigration to the U.S. accelerated. In addition
to the recession, the removal of corn tariffs contributed to the exodus: according to a 2014 report by Partner Links
the left-leaning Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), family farm employment fell by
58%, from 8.4 million in 1991 to 3.5 million in 2007. Due to growth in other agricultural sectors, the
net loss was 1.9 million jobs.
CEPR argues that Mexico could have achieved per-capita output on par higher than Portugal's if its
1960-1980 growth rate had held. Instead it clocked the 18th-worst rate of 20 Latin American
countries, growing at an average of just 0.9% per year from 1994 to 2013. The country's poverty rate
was almost unchanged from 1994 to 2012.
NAFTA does appear to have locked in some of Mexico's economic reforms: the country has not HOT DEFINITIONS
nationalized industries or run up massive fiscal deficits since the 1994-1995 recession. But changes
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to the old economic models were not accompanied by political changes at least not immediately.
Jorge Castaeda, who served as Mexico's foreign minister during Vicente Fox Quesada's Capital Gains Tax
administration, argued in a December 2013 article in Foreign Affairs that NAFTA provided "life Buy Limit Order
support" to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which had been in power without Rule 72(t)
interruption since 1929. Fox, a member of the National Action Party, broke PRI's streak upon Debt/Equity Ratio
becoming president in 2000 (the countr.
Mexico's experience with NAFTA was not all bad, however. The country became a car manufacturing
hub, with General Motors Co. (GM
(GM),), Fiat Chrysler Automobiles N.V. (FCAU
(FCAU),
), Nissan Motor Co.,
Volkswagen AG, Ford Motor Co. (F (F), Honda Motor Co. (HMC
(HMC),
), Toyota Motor Co. (TM
(TM)) and dozens of
others operating in the country not to mention hundreds of parts manufacturers. These and other
industries owe their growth in part to the more than four-fold real increase in U.S. foreign direct
investment (FDI) in Mexico since 1993. On the other hand, FDI in Mexico from all sources (the U.S. is
usually the largest contributor)
contributor) lags behind other Latin American economies as a share of GDP,
according to Castaeda.
U.S.FDIinMexico(19932013)
Nominal Real
100,000 Trading Center
80,000
Partner Links
60,000
40,000
20,000
1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012
MillionUSDrealdata=1993USD(BLScoreCPI)source:BEAviaCongressionalResearchService
CreatedwithDatawrapper HOT DEFINITIONS
Led by the auto industry, the largest export category, Mexican manufacturers maintain a $58.8 Beta
billion trade surplus in goods with the U.S.; prior to NAFTA there was a deficit. They have also Capital Gains Tax
contributed to the growth of a small, educated middle class: Mexico had around 9 engineering Buy Limit Order
graduates per 10,000 people in 2015, compared to 7 in the U.S.
Rule 72(t)
Finally, the increase in Mexican imports from the U.S. has driven consumer goods prices down, Debt/Equity Ratio
contributing to broader prosperity: "if Mexico has become a middle-class society, as many now
argue," Castaeda wrote in 2013, "it is largely due to this transformation." Yet he concludes that
NAFTA "has delivered on practically none of its economic promises." He advocates a more
comprehensive deal, with provisions for energy, migration, security and education "more NAFTA,
not less." That seems unlikely today.
Canada
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Canada experienced a more modest increase in trade with the U.S. than Mexico did as a result of
NAFTA, at an inflation-adjusted 63.5% (at around $34 billion, Canada-Mexico trade remains
negligible). Unlike Mexico, it does not enjoy a trade surplus with the U.S.; while it sells more goods to
the U.S. than it buys, a sizable services trade deficit with its southern neighbor brings the overall
balance to -$11.9 billion in 2015. Trading Center
Canada did enjoy a 243% real increase in FDI from the U.S. between 1993 and 2013, and real GDP per
head grew faster just barely than its neighbor's from 1993 to 2015, though it remains about 3.2% Partner Links
lower.
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Rule 72(t)
U.S.FDIinCanada(19932013) Debt/Equity Ratio

Nominal Real
$350,000
$300,000
$250,000
$200,000
$150,000
$100,000
1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012
MillionUSDrealdata=1993USD(BLScoreCPI)source:BEAviaCongressionalResearchService
Trading Center
As with the U.S. and Mexico, NAFTA did not deliver on its Canadian boosters' most extravagant Partner Links
promises; nor did it bring about its opponents' worst fears. The Canadian auto industry has
complained that low Mexican wages have siphoned jobs out of the country: when General Motors
cut 625 jobs at an Ontario plant to move them to Mexico in January, Unifor, the country's largest
private-sector union, blamed NAFTA.
NAFTA. Jim Stanford, an economist working for the union, told CBC
News in 2013 that NAFTA had sparked a "manufacturing catastrophe in the country."
Supporters sometimes cite oil exports as evidence that NAFTA has helped Canada: according to
MIT's Observatory of Economic Complexity,
Complexity, the U.S. imported $37.8 billion worth of crude oil in
1993, with 18.4% of it coming from Saudi Arabia and 13.2% of it coming from Canada. In 2014
Canada sold the U.S. $85.6 billion, or 33.8% of $253 billion in total crude imports. In real terms, HOT DEFINITIONS
Canada's sales of oil to the U.S. grew 997% over that period, and it has been its neighbor's largest
supplier since 2006. Beta
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U.S. crude oil imports, 1993 ($37.8 billion current USD) Buy Limit Order
Rule 72(t)
Debt/Equity Ratio
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U.S. crude oil imports, 2014 ($253 billion current USD)
Partner Links
HOT DEFINITIONS
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Source: MIT Rule 72(t)
On the other hand, Canada has long sold the U.S. 99% or more of its total oil exports: it did so even Debt/Equity Ratio
before the two countries stuck a free-trade agreement in 1988. In other words, NAFTA does not
appear to have done much to open the U.S. market to Canadian crude, since it was already wide
open; Canadians just produced more.
Overall, NAFTA was neither devastating nor transformational for Canada's economy. Opponents of
the 1988 free trade agreement had warned that Canada would become a glorified 51st state. While
that didn't happen, Canada didn't close the productivity gap with the U.S. either: Canada's GDP per
hours worked was 74% of the U.S.'s in 2012, according to the OECD.
China, Tech and the Crisis

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An honest assessment of NAFTA is difficult because it is impossible to hold every other variable
constant and look at the deal's effects in a vacuum. China's rapid ascent to the become the world's Trading Center
number-one exporter of goods and its second-largest economy happened while NAFTA's provisions
were going into effect. The U.S. bought just 5.8% of its imports from China in 1993, according to MIT;
in 2014 20% of imports came from the country. Partner Links
Hanson, David Autor and David Dorn argued in a 2013 paper that the surge in import competition
from 1990 to 2007 "explains one-quarter of the contemporaneous aggregate decline in US
manufacturing employment." While they acknowledged that Mexico and other countries "may also
matter for US labor-market outcomes," their focus was unquestionably China; the country did
controversially join the World Trade Organization in 2001, but it is not a party to NAFTA. Meanwhile
Japan saw its share of U.S. imports decline from 19% to 5.9% from 1993 to 2014. Japan is not a party
to NAFTA either.
U.S. imports by origin, 1993 ($542 billion current USD) HOT DEFINITIONS
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Rule 72(t)
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U.S. imports by origin, 2014 ($2.41 trillion current USD)
Partner Links
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Source: MIT Rule 72(t)
NAFTA is often blamed for things that could not be its fault: in 1999 the Christian Science Monitor Debt/Equity Ratio
wrote of an Arkansas town that it "would collapse, some said, like so many NAFTA ghost towns that
lost needle-trade and manufacturing jobs to places such as Sri Lanka or Honduras." Sri Lanka and
Honduras are not parties to agreement.
Yet there is something to this conflation of NAFTA with globalization writ large. The deal "initiated a
new generation of trade agreements in the Western Hemisphere and other parts of the world," the
CRS writes, so that "NAFTA" has understandably if not correctly become shorthand for 20 years of
broad diplomatic, political and commercial consensus that free trade is in a general a good thing.
Isolating NAFTA's effects is also difficult due to rapid technological change: the supercomputers of
the 1990s boasted a fraction of the processing power of today's smartphones, and the internet was
not yet fully commercialized when NAFTA was signed. Real U.S. manufacturing output rose 57.7%
from 1993 to 2016, even as employment in the sector plummeted; both trends are largely due to
automation. The CRS quotes Hanson, who puts technology second behind China in terms of Trading Center
employment impacts since 2000. NAFTA, he says, is "far less important."
Finally, three discrete events have had major impacts on the North American economy, none of Partner Links
which can be traced to NAFTA. The tech bubble's bust put a dent in growth. The September 11
attacks led to a crackdown on border crossings, particularly between the U.S. and Mexico, but also
between the U.S. and Canada: Michael Wilson, Canada's minister of international trade from 1991 to
1993, wrote in a 2013 Foreign Affairs article that same-day crossings from the U.S. to Canada fell
nearly 70% from 2000 to 2012 to a four-decade low.
Finally, the 2008 financial crisis had a profound impact on the global economy, making it difficult to
pinpoint one trade deal's effect. Outside of particular industries, where the effect is still not entirely
clear-cut, NAFTA had little obvious impact good or bad on North American economies. That it is
now in danger of being scrapped probably has little to do with its own merits or flaws, and much HOT DEFINITIONS
more to do with automation, China's rise and the political fallout from September 11 and the 2008
financial crisis.
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Rule 72(t)
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