NAFTA: 10 Years After

摘要

In 1992, presidential aspirant Ross Perot pre-dieted a "great sucking sound" as the North American Free Trade Agreement moved thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs south to Mexico. As things have turned out, China, not Mexico, has been the major source of U.S. manufacturing job losses. The North American Free Trade Agreement officially came into effect on Jan. 1,1994, knocking down tariff and other trade barriers between Canada, the United States and Mexico. While some observers, like billionaire Perot, feared the agreement would cause massive job relocations to Mexico where labor is much cheaper, NAFTA's impact on the U.S. wood furniture industry, relative to increased trade with China, has been fairly minimal, as tariffs on furniture were not that high to begin with.