Deeper, better, NAFTA

摘要

Astep to rival the creation of nato, or a mortal threat to American jobs from cheap Mexican labour? The arguments for and against the North American Free-Trade Agreement (nafta) before its launch on January ist 1994 were hyperbolic. Twenty years on, nafta's backers have won the argument. The American and Canadian economies were already pretty well integrated before the creation of nafta, so there was no great leap in trade between the two. But America's trade with Mexico increased by 506% between 1993 and 2012, compared with 279% with non-NAFTA countries. In 2011 America traded as much with Canada and Mexico as it did with the bric countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China), Japan and South Korea combined.