NAFTA Destroyed Employment Essay examples -- Free Trade, Globalization

NAFTA and the North American Worker The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed into law on December 8, 1993 by former President Bill Clinton. The goal was to facilitate trade between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada by eliminating tariffs on goods traded between them, but it was also about creating jobs. William Orme (1996) affirmed, â€Å"From the beginning, the Bush Administration said NAFTA was about three things: ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’† (p. 112). The trade agreement was sold to the workers of North America with the promise of better jobs, higher pay, and faster growth, but it did not turn out this way for workers in the U.S., for workers in Mexico, or for workers in Canada. According to the Economic Policy Institute, instead of an increase in better paying jobs in the U.S., over a million jobs were lost in ten years with a decrease in wages for many workers with less than a college education (Scott, Salas, & Campbell, 2006). The Mexican economy that NAFTA was expected to prop up has become one of cheap labor used to assemble imported goods into final products for export. James Cypher (2011) confirmed: â€Å"NAFTA has permanently tied Mexico to a low-wage export strategy† (p. 62). In Canada, the once generous social welfare programs granted to workers and citizens alike have been reduced since NAFTA was ratified. The U.S. Worker Although the impact has been less due to the size of the U.S. economy, the U.S. worker has still been adversely affected since NAFTA was implemented. This has been mainly due to the growing trade deficits with Mexico and Canada that have arisen after the agreement became law. The high-paying jobs of U.S. workers in industries that manufacture and export goods have been displaced as a result of more g... ...ited?. The International Economy, 22(3), 24-35. Retrieved from Research Library. (Document ID: 1554987891). Bacon, D. (2004). The children of NAFTA: Labor wars on the U.S./Mexico border. Berkeley: University of California Press. Cypher, J. M. (2011). MEXICO SINCE NAFTA: Elite Delusions and the Reality of Decline. New Labor Forum (Murphy Institute), 20(3), 60-69. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. MacArthur, J. R. (2000). The selling of "free trade": NAFTA, Washington, and the subversion of American democracy. New York: Hill and Wang. Orme, W. A. (1996). Understanding NAFTA: Mexico, free trade, and the new North America. Austin: University of Texas Press. Scott, R. E., Salas, C., & Campbell, B. (2006). Revisiting NAFTA: Still not working for North America’s workers. Economic Policy Institute. EPI Briefing Paper #173. Retrieved from http://www.epi.org/publication/bp173/.