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US-Mexico Free Trade: Implications for the United States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Sidney Weintraub
Sidney Weintraub*
Affiliation:
Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, the University of Texas at Austin
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Extract

The Moment of Truth has come for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The US Congress will have to stop talking and vote to accept or reject the agreement negotiated among Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The disagreement on NAFTA in the United States is about free trade with Mexico, not with Canada. A US-Canada free trade agreement (FTA) already exists.

This controversy over NAFTA has been fierce in the United States, much more so than in Mexico. This comparison speaks volumes about changing attitudes. It was almost unthinkable a decade ago that Mexico would so drastically alter its traditional position of maintaining economic and political distance from the United States. This change would not have been possible but for la decena trágica, the years of the 1980s. Beyond that, Mexico has more at stake in a free trade agreement. It has the smaller economy (about 1/27th that of the United States) so that changes, for better or worse, are magnified.

Type
Two Views of the NAFTA
Information
Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , Summer 1992 , pp. 29 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © University of Miami 1992

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References

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