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Surprising to many Americans is the importance of the United States’ trade with Mexico. While Asia captures the headlines, U.S. exports to Mexico are double those to China, and second only to Canada. And while many of these goods come from border states -- Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California -- Mexico matters for much more of the union. Seventeen states send more than 10 percent of their exports to Mexico, and it is the number one or two destination for U.S. goods for nearly half the country. The graph below shows those states most economically dependent on our southern neighbor --notice that South Dakota and Nebraska outpace New Mexico and California. These flows are only accelerating. During the first ten months of 2012 exports heading south grew by $17 billion (or 10 percent) compared to 2011, reaching a total of $181 billion. They include petroleum products (some $17 billion worth) and intermediate goods such as vehicle parts, electrical apparatuses, industrial supplies, metals, and chemicals (over $40 billion combined). Spurred on by deep supply chains, these pieces and parts move fluidly back and forth across the border (often quite a few times) before ending up as finished goods on store shelves in both countries. U.S. exports and Mexico The uptick should be seen as a good thing. According to economic studies, these exports support some six million American jobs (directly and indirectly). But to continue this dynamism, the United States and Mexico need to improve border infrastructure and facilitate flows. This means expanding border crossings and highways, and harmonizing regulations and customs to make the process easier and faster. Prioritizing and investing in bilateral trade will provide greater opportunity and security—for U.S. companies and workers alike.
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O’Neill 1/14 – Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies, contributor to the Council on Foreign Relations and the Wilson Institute (Shannon K., “U.S. Depends on Mexico for Exports”, 1/14/13; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/14/us-depends-on-mexico-for-_n_2471961.html)//Beddow
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Surprising to many Americans is the importance of the United States’ trade with Mexico. U.S. exports to Mexico are double those to China, and second only to Canada. Mexico matters for much more of the union. Seventeen states send more than 10 percent of their exports to Mexico, and it is the number one or two destination for U.S. goods for nearly half the country. The uptick should be seen as a good thing. According to economic studies, these exports support some six million American jobs (directly and indirectly). But to continue this dynamism, the United States and Mexico need to improve border infrastructure and facilitate flows. Prioritizing and investing in bilateral trade will provide greater opportunity and security—for U.S. companies and workers alike.
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Mexican prosperty is key to the US economy – consumption.
| 1,805 | 57 | 770 | 286 | 10 | 124 | 0.034965 | 0.433566 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Since NAFTA was passed, U.S.-Mexican trade has more than tripled. Well over $1 billion worth of goods crosses the U.S.-Mexican border every day, as do 3,000 people, 12,000 trucks, and 1,200 railcars. Mexico is second only to Canada as a destination for U.S. goods, and sales to Mexico support an estimated six million American jobs, according to a report published by the Woodrow Wilson International Center's Mexico Institute. The composition of that bilateral trade has also changed in recent decades. Approximately 40 percent of the products made in Mexico today have parts that come from the United States. Many consumer goods, including cars, televisions, and computers, cross the border more than once during their production. Admittedly, this process has sent some U.S. jobs south, but overall, cross-border production is good for U.S. employment. There is evidence that U.S. companies with overseas operations are more likely to create domestic jobs than those based solely in the United States. Using data collected confidentially from thousands of large U.S. manufacturing firms, the scholars Mihir Desai, C. Fritz Foley, and James Hines upended the conventional wisdom in a 2008 study, which found that when companies ramp up their investment and employment internationally, they invest more and hire more people at home, too. Overseas operations make companies more productive and competitive, and with improved products, lower prices, and higher sales, they are able to create new jobs everywhere. Washington should welcome the expansion of U.S. companies in Mexico because increasing cross-border production and trade between the two countries would boost U.S. employment and growth. Mexico is a ready, willing, and able economic partner, with which the United States has closer ties than it does with any other emerging-market country.
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O’Neill 13 – Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies, contributor to the Council on Foreign Relations and the Wilson Institute (Shannon K., “Mexico Makes It”, March/April 2013; < http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/138818/shannon-k-oneil/mexico-makes-it>)//Beddow
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Since NAFTA was passed, U.S.-Mexican trade has more than tripled. Well over $1 billion worth of goods crosses the U.S.-Mexican border every day, as do 3,000 people, 12,000 trucks, and 1,200 railcars. Mexico is second only to Canada as a destination for U.S. goods, and sales to Mexico support an estimated six million American jobs, Approximately 40 percent of the products made in Mexico today have parts that come from the United States. Many consumer goods, including cars, televisions, and computers, cross the border more than once during their production overall, cross-border production is good for U.S. employment. There is evidence that U.S. companies with overseas operations are more likely to create domestic jobs than those based solely in the United States. Overseas operations make companies more productive and competitive, and with improved products, lower prices, and higher sales, they are able to create new jobs everywhere. Washington should welcome the expansion of U.S. companies in Mexico because increasing cross-border production and trade between the two countries would boost U.S. employment and growth. Mexico is a ready, willing, and able economic partner, with which the United States has closer ties than it does with any other emerging-market country.
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Mexican growth is key to the US economy – manufacturing.
| 1,850 | 56 | 1,284 | 284 | 10 | 198 | 0.035211 | 0.697183 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,002 |
But despite the widespread lack of consensus over the causes of civil war, very few quantitative researchers would disagree that there is a robust association between high levels of national income and a lower risk of war. Other things being equal, high national incomes translate into greater state capacity and more resources for governments to buy off grievances and defeat insurgents in those wars that cannot be prevented. The conflict trends in East Asia over the past 30 years, which are the focus of Chapter 3, provide an instructive example of the association between rising levels of economic development and the incidence of armed conflict. As national incomes in the region have steadily risen since the late 1970s, state capacity and performance legitimacy have also increased—and conflict numbers have declined by some 60 percent. Indeed, insurgents—who have been largely excluded from the benefits of economic growth in the region—have not achieved a single military victory since the 1970s.
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HSRP 10 – Human Security Report Project, Simon Fraser University, Canada (“Human Security Report 2009/2010”, 12/2/10; Part one page 20, <http://www.hsrgroup.org/human-security-reports/20092010/text.aspx>)//Beddow
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high levels of national income and a lower risk of war. high national incomes translate into greater state capacity and more resources for governments to buy off grievances and defeat insurgents in those wars that cannot be prevented conflict trends in East Asia over the past 30 years, which are the focus of Chapter 3, provide an instructive example of the association between rising levels of economic development and the incidence of armed conflict. As national incomes in the region have steadily risen since the late 1970s, state capacity and performance legitimacy have also increased—and conflict numbers have declined by some 60 percent
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Economic growth solves war – increased state capacity.
| 1,006 | 54 | 645 | 158 | 8 | 103 | 0.050633 | 0.651899 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,003 |
Asia, however, does call for more U.S. military, diplomatic and economic involvement. Other regions can also stake a claim to a share of Washington’s attention. Negotiating a transatlantic free-trade agreement (ideally, one involving both Canada and Mexico) would be a major economic and strategic accomplishment; so, too, would be negotiating and implementing a NAFTA 2.0 that would more closely link the United States with its immediate neighbors so as to better manage shared interests related to trade and investment, security, energy, infrastructure, and the flow of people. Narrowing the gap between global challenges and the current institutional arrangements for dealing with them is also an important issue, particularly in the case of climate change. Here and elsewhere, though, global accords with broad participation may not be possible, and it may be more realistic and rewarding to focus on agreements with narrower aims, less participation, or both. Any U.S. rebalancing among regions and issues, finally, needs to be complemented by another sort of rebalancing, between the internal and the external, the domestic and the foreign. The United States needs to restore the foundations of American economic power so that it will once again have the resources to act freely and lead in the world, so that it can compete, so that it can discourage threats from emerging and contend with them if need be, so that it is less vulnerable to international developments it cannot control, and so that it can set an example others will want to emulate. The vast sums spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq did not cause the nation’s current budgetary or economic predicament, but they did contribute to it. Spending more on national security now would only make it more difficult to set things right. The goal at home must be to restore historical levels of domestic economic growth, reduce the ratio of debt to GDP, and improve the quality of the nation’s infrastructure and human capital. During the next several years, facing no rival great power or existential threat, the United States is likely to enjoy something of a strategic respite. The question is whether the United States will take advantage of that respite to renew the sources of its strength or squander it through continued overreaching in the Middle East, not attending to Asia, and underinvesting in home.
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Haass 13 – American diplomat, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, Director of Policy Planning for the Department of State, advisor to Colin Powell, US Coordinator for the Future of Afghanistan (Richard N., “The Irony of American Strategy: Putting the Middle East in Proper Perspective”, May/June 2013 issue of Foreign Affairs)//Beddow
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Asia, however, does call for more U.S. military, diplomatic and economic involvement. Other regions can also stake a claim to a share of Washington’s attention. Narrowing the gap between global challenges and the current institutional arrangements for dealing with them is also an important issue Any U.S. rebalancing among regions and issues, finally, needs to be complemented by another sort of rebalancing, between the internal and the external, the domestic and the foreign. The United States needs to restore the foundations of American economic power so that it will once again have the resources to act freely and lead in the world, so that it can compete, so that it can discourage threats from emerging and contend with them if need be, so that it is less vulnerable to international developments it cannot control, and so that it can set an example others will want to emulate The goal at home must be to restore historical levels of domestic economic growth, reduce the ratio of debt to GDP, and improve the quality of the nation’s infrastructure and human capital. During the next several years, facing no rival great power or existential threat, the United States is likely to enjoy something of a strategic respite. The question is whether the United States will take advantage of that respite to renew the sources of its strength or squander it through and underinvesting in home.
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Economic decline turns heg and growth ensures it.
| 2,381 | 49 | 1,395 | 386 | 8 | 232 | 0.020725 | 0.601036 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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3,004 |
The unfolding global economic crisis is expected to bring the world economy into recession in 2009. Figure 1 shows the population weighted real GDP growth from 1991 to 2009 (estimates for 2008 and projection for 2009) for the world economy and for different groups of countries. The annual real GDP growth rate of the global economy was 5.1% in 2007 but the world economy is projected to shrink by -1.3% in 2009 (IMF, 2009). Emerging and developing economies are also projected to suffer a sharp slowdown as a result of the crisis, with a projected growth rate of 1.6% in 2009 compared to 8.3% in 2007. For many developing countries, the sharp economic slowdowns will translate into deep recessions. The UN projects that 15 developing countries will have ne gative per capita growth in 2009 1 , while projections from the World Bank adjusting for terms-of-tra de changes increase this to 50 2 . A recent strand of literature, reviewed in some detail in this paper, suggests that economic conditions are important determinants of the outbreak and recurrence of conflict. In particular, wars often start following growth collapses (Collier et al, 2009, p.15). Sharp economic slowdowns and low levels of income per capita appear to increase the likelihood of conflicts. In this context, it is opportune to explore insights fro m this literature, linking it also with the human development implications of both growth slow downs and conflict. In particular, the paper highlights the risks of the emergence of low-human-development/conflict traps. Given that the probability of conflict recurrence is high, as elaborated upon below, post-conflict countries – those that have experienced armed conflicts until recent years – may be particularly vulnerable. 3 As Figure 1 shows, post-conflict countrie s are projected to have a substantial decrease in the economic growth, from 7.4% in 2007 to 3.1% in 2009. Advanced economies may have a sharper slowdown (2.7% in 2007 and -3.8% in 2009), but they have well-developed social protection, and stable political systems that may facilitate the rec overy and absorb the pressures for social instability and conflict. In contrast, post-conflict countries, ma y be more vulnerable to a more protracted and slower recovery from the slowdown, given the hi gher risks of conflict recurrence. Drawing on a review of both theoretical and empirical literature, this paper frames the the connection between economic factors and conflict within a conceptual framework in which levels of human development and the risk of conflict are linked. Violent conflict is one of the most extreme forms of suppressing choices and advancing rights, and therefore a major threat to human development (UNDP, 2005, p.151). Since 1990, more than 3 million people have died in armed conflicts in developing countries (Marshall, 2005). The total war deaths are far more than the battle deaths. For example, the total war deaths are estimated as 1.2 million in Ethiopia during 1976-1991, but only 2% of them were directly engaged in the battles. (Bethany and Gleditsch, 2004) Conflict has also non-lethal consequences that may last across generations (UNDP, 2008a). As far as drivers of conflict are concerned, one of the most robust findings in the literature is that many economic conditions (low income, slow growth, and especially severe economic downturns) are correlated with the outbreak of conflict, with some evidence strongly suggesting that the causal direction runs from economic conditions to conflict (Col lier and Hoeffler, 2004). There is also a rich literature on the impact of horizontal inequality and dependence on natural resources as drivers of increases in the risk of conflict. This paper however focuses only on the economic factors, reviewing the fi ndings in light of the current economic crisis and the severe economic downturn that it now occurring. When it comes to the consequences of conflict, there is no doubt that it is harmful to human welfare, but it becomes even more hazardous if conflict results in a persistent low human development/conflict trap. A typical country reaching the end of a civil war faces a 44 percent risk of returning to conflict within five years (Collier et al, 2003, p. 83). Whether or not a country will experience a new civil war can be best predicted by whether the country experienced wars in the past (Collier, et al, 2004). The high rates of recurrence of conflict, along with the economic determinants of conflict, suggest the possibility of the existence of poverty-conflict traps (Collier et al, 2003; Bloomberg and others 2000). Given that pove rty and low per capita income ar e also correlated with worse health and education outcomes, and also that these outcomes suffer as a result of conflict, the conflict trap can be conceptualized in the framework of a low human development – conflict trap (Collier and Hoeffler, 2004; Justino and Verwimp, 2006; Alderman, Hoddinott and Kinsey, 2004). A self-reinforcing circle from conflict to low human development, and vice versa, is suggestively illustrated below (Chart 1). Conflict destroys accumulated physical and human capital, forces replacement of labor, deteriorates institutional capacity. A country experiencing conflict cannot secure long term returns for investments in both in physical and human capital, resulting in low investment in health and education. All of these factors lead to low levels of human development. A country with low levels of human development has more difficulty in improving institutions, and in increasing productivity and potential growth. In turn, lower growth rates heighten the risk of conflict, potentially trapping a country in the loop. The remainder of the paper discusses the empirical findings and theoretical background for linkage between the low-human development and conflict. Section 2 consid ers how low levels of human development can affect the risk of violent conflict. Section 3 shows how the conflict can result in low human development, completing the vicious circle. Section 4 concludes the paper with a brief discussion on the policy responses. 2. From Low Human Development to Conflict While there are number of factor s that could cause conflict, empirical studies find that poor economic performance is associated with higher incidence of conflict. Being a poor country is correlated with most forms of violence (UNDP, 2008a). Figure 2 shows that economic development and conflicts are observed to be clearly related. The level of GDP is negatively correlated with observing a new conflict. Collier et al (2009) fi nd that the predicted risk for a hypothetical country with characteristics set at the study’s sample mean was 4.6 per cent. If the level of per capita income were to be halved from this level, the risk woul d be increased to 5.3 per cent. Growth rates are also strongly associated with risks of conflict in deve loping countries. If the growth rate in developing countries is increase d by one percentage point from the mean, the risk of conflict decreases by 0.6 per centage points to 4.0 per cent (Collier et al, 2009). Kang and Meernik (2005) show that the grow th rate in conflict countries in the five years prior to conflict, including cases of conf lict recurrence, was on average 0.5 pe rcent compared to 2 percent in countries that remained peaceful. Empirical analysis of growth a nd conflict has inherent data limitations, but some recent studies using more careful methodology shows a st rong causal link running from poor economic performance to conflict. One probl em is that the direction of impact between the income per capita and conflict can run both wa ys. Assuming a priori one-way causality – that is, ignoring endogeneity – in regression analysis can result in biased estimates. Other information used in the empirical studies, such as income inequality, po pulation, ethnic distributi on, are also subject to difficulties of econometric identification and data quality (Hegre and Sambanis, 2006; Sambanis, 2004).To address the endogeneity problem, some studi es adopt instrumental variable analysis, using a strictly exogenous variable that moves with income per cap ita, but not with conflict. For instance, Miguel, Satyannath and Sergenti (2004) use annual changes in rainfall data as an instrument for income growth. The rainfall data predicts growth fluctuation in agricultural economies in Africa. They find that income shocks are drive conflict. Besley and Persson (2008) and Bazzi and Blattman (2008) use internationa l commodity price and trade shocks as the exogenous variables, but they find that the evidence on the relations hip between economic shocks as drivers of conflict is mixed.
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Conceição and Kim 10 – Director of the Office of Development Studies at UNPD, assistant professor at the Technical University of Lisbon, degrees in Physics and Economics from the Technical University of Lisbon and PhD in Public Policy from the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin / Office of Development Studies UNDP (Pedro and Namsuk, “The Economic Crisis, Violent Conflict, and Human Development”, International Journal of Peace Studies, V.15 No. 1, Spring/Summer 2010; http://www.gmu.edu/programs/icar/ijps/vol15_1/KimConceicao15n1.pdf)//Beddow
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recent strand of literature, reviewed in some detail in this paper, suggests that economic conditions are important determinants of the outbreak and recurrence of conflict. In particular, wars often start following growth collapses Sharp economic slowdowns and low levels of income per capita appear to increase the likelihood of conflicts. In this context, it is opportune to explore insights fro m this literature, linking it also with the human development implications of both growth slow downs and conflict Given that the probability of conflict recurrence is high, as elaborated upon below, post-conflict countries – those that have experienced armed conflicts until recent years – may be particularly vulnerable As far as drivers of conflict are concerned, one of the most robust findings in the literature is that many economic conditions (low income, slow growth, and especially severe economic downturns) are correlated with the outbreak of conflict, with some evidence strongly suggesting that the causal direction runs from economic conditions to conflict There is also a rich literature on the impact of horizontal inequality and dependence on natural resources as drivers of increases in the risk of conflict. When it comes to the consequences of conflict, there is no doubt that it is harmful to human welfare, but it becomes even more hazardous if conflict results in a persistent low human development/conflict trap. A self-reinforcing circle from conflict to low human development, and vice versa, is suggestively illustrated below (Chart 1). Conflict destroys accumulated physical and human capital, forces replacement of labor, deteriorates institutional capacity. A country experiencing conflict cannot secure long term returns for investments in both in physical and human capital, resulting in low investment in health and education. A country with low levels of human development has more difficulty in improving institutions, and in increasing productivity and potential growth. In turn, lower growth rates heighten the risk of conflict, potentially trapping a country in the loop.
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Recessions lock nations in a self-reinforcing death spiral to war.
| 8,728 | 66 | 2,106 | 1,397 | 10 | 318 | 0.007158 | 0.227631 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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3,005 |
“The most robustly significant predictor of [armed] conflict risk and its duration is some indicator of economic prosperity. At a higher income people have more to lose from the destructiveness of conflict; and higher per-capita income implies a better functioning social contract, institutions and state capacity.”[3] This correlation between underdevelopment and armed conflict is confirmed in a 2008 paper by Thania Paffenholz[4] which notes that “since 1990, more than 50% of all conflict-prone countries have been low income states…. Two thirds of all armed conflicts take place in African countries with the highest poverty rates. Econometric research found a correlation between the poverty rate and likelihood of armed violence….[T]he lower the GDP per capita in a country, the higher the likelihood of armed conflict.” Of course, it is important to point out that this is not a claim that there is a direct causal connection between poverty and armed conflict. To repeat, the causes of conflict are complex and context specific, nevertheless, says Paffenholz, there is a clear correlation between a low and declining per capita income and a country’s vulnerability to conflict. It is also true, on the other hand, that there are low income countries that experience precipitous economic decline, like Zambia in the 1980s and 1990s, without suffering the kind of turmoil that has visited economically more successful countries like Kenya and Cote d’Ivoire. Referring to both Zambia and Nigeria, Pafenholz says these are cases in which “the social compact” has proven to be resilient. Both have formal and informal mechanisms that are able to address grievances in ways that allowed them to be aired and resolved or managed without recourse to violence. A brief review of literature on economics and armed conflict, published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, indicates the complexity and imprecision behind the question, “does poverty cause conflict?” While many of the “world’s poorest countries are riven by armed conflict,” and while poverty, conflict and under-development set up a cycle of dysfunction in which each element of the cycle is exacerbated by the other, it is also the case that “conflict obviously does not just afflict the poorest countries” – as Northern Ireland and the former Yugoslavia demonstrate. “Many poor countries are not at war; shared poverty may not be a destabilizing influence. Indeed, economic growth can destabilize, as the wars in countries afflicted by an abundance of particular natural resources appear to show.”[5] Another review of the literature makes the general point that “the escalation of conflict during economic downturns is more likely in countries recovering from conflict, or fragile states.” That makes Africa especially vulnerable on two counts: economic deprivation and recent armed conflict are present in a relatively high number of states, making the continent especially vulnerable to economic shocks. As a general rule, “weak economies often translate into weak and fragile states and the presence of violent conflict, which in turn prevents economic growth.” One study argues that “the risk of war in any given country is determined by the initial level of income, the rate of economic growth and the level of dependency on primary commodity exports.” Changes in rates of economic growth thus lead to changes in threats of conflict. As unemployment rises in fragile states this can “exacerbate conflict due to comparatively better income opportunities for young men in rebel groups as opposed to labour markets.”[6] The concentration of armed conflict in lower income countries is also reflected in the conflict tabulation by Project Ploughshares over the past quarter century. The 2009 Human Development Index ranks 182 countries in four categories of Human Development – Very High, High, Medium, Low. Of the 98 countries in the Medium and Low categories of human development in 2009, 55 per cent experienced war on their territories in the previous 24 years. In the same period, only 24 per cent of countries in the High human development category saw war within their borders, while just two (5 per cent) countries in the Very High human development ranking had war on their territory (the UK re Northern Ireland and Israel). The wars of the recent past were overwhelmingly fought on the territories of states at the low end of the human development scale. A country’s income level is thus a strong indicator of its risk of being involved in sustained armed conflict. Low income countries lack the capacity to create conditions conducive to serving the social, political, and economic welfare of their people. And when economic inequality is linked to differences between identity groups, the correlation to armed conflict is even stronger. In other words, group based inequalities are especially destabilizing.[7] These failures in human security are of course heavily shaped by external factors, notably international economic and security conditions and the interests of the major powers (in short, globalization),[8] and these factors frequently combine with internal political/religious/ethnic circumstances that create conditions especially conducive to conflict and armed conflict.
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ETH 13 – engineering, science, technology, and management university in Switzerland, part of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology Domain, subordinate to Switzerland’s Department of Home Affairs (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, “Intrastate Conflict: Data, Trends and Drivers”, 2/4/13; < http://www.isn.ethz.ch/Digital-Library/Articles/Special-Feature/Detail/?id=158597&tabid=1453496807&contextid774=158597&contextid775=158627>)//Beddow
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“The most robustly significant predictor of [armed] conflict risk and its duration is some indicator of economic prosperity. At a higher income people have more to lose from the destructiveness of conflict; and higher per-capita income implies a better functioning social contract, institutions and state capacity.”[3] This correlation between underdevelopment and armed conflict is confirmed in a 2008 paper by Thania Paffenholz[4] which notes that “since 1990, more than 50% of all conflict-prone countries have been low income states…. To repeat, the causes of conflict are complex and context specific, nevertheless, says Paffenholz, there is a clear correlation between a low and declining per capita income and a country’s vulnerability to conflict. Indeed, economic growth can destabilize, as the wars in countries afflicted by an abundance of particular natural resources appear to show.”[5] Another review of the literature makes the general point that “the escalation of conflict during economic downturns is more likely in countries recovering from conflict, or fragile states.” As a general rule, “weak economies often translate into weak and fragile states and the presence of violent conflict, which in turn prevents economic growth.” One study argues that “the risk of war in any given country is determined by the initial level of income, the rate of economic growth and the level of dependency on primary commodity exports.” Changes in rates of economic growth thus lead to changes in threats of conflict. A country’s income level is thus a strong indicator of its risk of being involved in sustained armed conflict.
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Economic crisis triggers war.
| 5,276 | 29 | 1,633 | 821 | 4 | 253 | 0.004872 | 0.308161 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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NAFTA and the general neoliberal restructuring of the Mexican economy that began in the 1980s have had a profound impact on the U.S. production system. Notable in this process has been the shifting of U.S. investment into Mexico. Without the neoliberal restructuring process in Mexico, such investments would have been directed—in most instances—to the United States, creating jobs, raising the skill level, enhancing productivity, and producing spread effects via forward and backward linkages, along with stimulating aggregate demand through the consumer spending of workers.14 Increasing capital mobility has undermined the rate of capital formation in the United States. A countertendency was created through the increasing portion of the Mexican economic surplus that was displaced to the United States as profits rose from the Mexican operations of U.S. transnationals. This countertendency was reinforced as Mexican immigrants flowed into the United States and into industrial sectors, lowering production costs and raising profits. Thus, the impact of capital shifting to Mexico fell on the U.S. labor force, particularly organized labor, while the U.S. restructuring process created two significant avenues to increased profits, with these benefits flowing to a small percentage of owners and managers and stockholders located in manufacturing and finance. ¶ At the same time, the U.S. economy receives a certain type of stimulus from Mexican emigration to the degree that new investments occur—derivative of substantially different consumption patterns arising from the 7 million Mexican emigrant workers and their dependents. This is to be noted in the so-called migration industry (Guarnizo 2003). ¶ Shifting capital to Mexico destroyed jobs in the United States, as did the size able trade deficit the United States developed with Mexico once the NAFTA agreement had been consummated. Bringing more of Mexico's economic surplus back to the United States stimulated the economy, and the influx of millions of ¶ Mexican emigrants helped push down labors' share of national income. The net effect was to create a new social structure of accumulation; a leaner and meaner social environment for all workers, emigrant or not; and a corpulent, more contented, business elite in the United States now better positioned to meet foreign competitors either by locating production in the United States or in Mexico, as profit maximization strategies indicated. ¶ The resulting macroeconomic relationships, however, did not determine the repositioning of U.S. capital in Mexico. Viewing the matter from the standpoint of the restructuring of the U.S. production system, a separate logic—driven by the desire to maximize profits and out-perform the competition—prevailed. Under this logic, shifting capital to Mexico could enable U.S. firms to purchase labor processes at as low as 9 percent of the cost in the United States while accepting that productivity per hour might not be as high as that in the United States.15 At the microeconomic level of the firm—assuming the stability of final demand for products exported from Mexico to the United States—shifting capital to Mexico to achieve labor efficiencies was a logical step in many instances. In highly oligopolized industries, such as autos, the available research indicates that the cost-saving production processes adopted in Mexico were taken as profits (Cypher 2001). In less capital-intensive industries, such as apparel, where brand identity is strong, similar profit-enhancing results should be anticipated. ¶ Shifting production to Mexico made credible the threat of further production transfers, thereby weakening all U.S. labor and particularly organized labor. The stagnation in U.S. production workers' pay is broadly consistent with the increasing tendency of U.S. corporations to move their production operations to Mexico. Thus, in the process of restructuring the U.S. production system—a perceived necessity during the course of the 1980s—a complex, mutually reinforcing, triple movement began: (1) significant elements of U.S. capital shifted to Mexico, thereby lowering costs of production; (2) while capital often threatened to move to Mexico, thereby strengthening its bargaining power over labor, either reducing wage increases or lowering wages; and (3) growing numbers of workers were displaced by the production movement to Mexico thereby reducing the portion of the labor force in unions and thus reducing the impact of unionized labor that tends to push up wages for all (but near minimum-wage) workers.
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Wise and Cypher 2007—Dr. Raúl Delgado Wise is president of the International Network on Migration and Development; UNESCO Chair on Migration, Development and Human Rights; and Professor of the Doctoral Programme in Development Studies at the Autonomous University of Zacatecas, Mexico. Dr. James M. Cypher received his Ph.D. degree in economics from the University of California, Riverside in 1973. His B.A. and M.A. degrees were awarded by University of California, Santa Barbara. His early research interests were focused on the macroeconomic impacts of US military spending, and he has published numerous articles in this area. Since the late 1980s he has concentrated on the Mexican Economy and issues of internationalization and economic development of poor nations. His book, State and Capital in Mexico (Westview, 1990) was published in Mexico by Siglo XXI publishers. He has taught or worked at several universities in Latin America, and is currently engaged in a large project to assess the pattern of industrialization in Chile. The senior member of the Department’s faculty, Dr. Cypher has devoted his career to undergraduate teaching for over three decades. With James Dietz he co-authored a text, The Process of Economic Development (Routledge) the second edition of which will appear in 2003. [“The Strategic Role of Mexican Labor under NAFTA: Critical Perspectives on Current Economic Integration.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science , Vol. 610, NAFTA and Beyond: Alternative Perspectives in the Study of Global Trade and Development (Mar., 2007), pp. 120-142]//MM
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NAFTA and the general neoliberal restructuring of the Mexican economy that began in the 1980s have had a profound impact on the U.S. production system Without the neoliberal restructuring process in Mexico, such investments would have been directed—in most instances—to the United States, creating jobs, raising the skill level, enhancing productivity, and producing spread effects via forward and backward linkages, along with stimulating aggregate demand through the consumer spending of workers. A countertendency was created through the increasing portion of the Mexican economic surplus that was displaced to the United States as profits rose from the Mexican operations , the U.S. economy receives a certain type of stimulus from Mexican emigration to the degree that new investments occur—derivative of substantially different consumption patterns arising from the 7 million Mexican emigrant workers and their dependents Shifting capital to Mexico destroyed jobs in the United States, as did the size able trade deficit the United States developed with Mexico once the NAFTA agreement had been consummated. , business elite in the United States now better positioned to meet foreign competitors either by locating production in the United States or in Mexico, as profit maximization strategies indicated Shifting production to Mexico made credible the threat of further production transfers, thereby weakening all U.S. labor and particularly organized labor. in the process of restructuring the U.S. production system a complex, mutually reinforcing, triple movement began: (1) significant elements of U.S. capital shifted to Mexico, thereby lowering costs of production; (2) while capital often threatened to move to Mexico, thereby strengthening its bargaining power over labor, either reducing wage increases or lowering wages; and (3) growing numbers of workers were displaced by the production movement to Mexico
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NAFTA negatively impacted US capital formation and labor
| 4,587 | 56 | 1,924 | 687 | 8 | 282 | 0.011645 | 0.41048 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,007 |
Frustration levels are rising among U.S.exportersas the number of North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) audits by Mexico's tax collecting agency-the Servicio de Administracion Tributaria (SAT)-continue to grow. Despite the current administration's promises that it would change course from its predecessor by streamlining audit procedures, global traders are still facing costly and time-consuming NAFTA audits and re-audits as they attempt to interpret mixed messages from the Mexican government.¶ "Mexico's SAT, recently underwent a reorganization and everyone was hoping that the NAFTA audit process would be less time-consuming and costly," explains customs and trade attorney Elise Shibles, a partner with Sandler, Travis & Rosenberg, P.A. "Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be the case, especially for companies in the textile and apparel trade" she says. "NAFTA rules of origin in this industry are very complex and require review of multiple levels of processing, which usually occurs at different companies. It's hard enough having to go through a NAFTA verification audit once, but being subjected to re-auditing when you've already passed with flying colors seems unduly harsh on business."¶ The SAT's policy inconsistencies are also tying many U.S. and Mexican companies up into knots, says trade expert Jorge Morales, Managing Director of STTAS de Mexico Servicios de Comercio Exterior, the Mexico City arm of leading global trade services provider Sandler & Travis Trade Advisory Services, Inc. "Despite the fact that SAT is telling us that Mexican importers can submit NAFTA documentation on behalf of U.S. exporters, only a small number of Mexican importers know about this important benefit because SAT is handling this issue only as an internal regulation that hasn't been properly disseminated among all involved companies. The lack of uniformity is confusing for our clients," he continues. "Without clear guidance there is no way a company can maintain compliance. You have to know what the rules are before you can be expected to follow them."
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PR Newswire 6/13 (PR Newswire, Public corporations in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, and other nations, use PR Newswire to reach the investment and financial news community with important announcements, thus achieving the standard of "simultaneous disclosure" required by financial markets and regulatory agencies, “U.S. NAFTA Exporters Beware: No End in Sight for Taxing Mexico Audits; U.S. exporters face growing number of North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) audits by Mexico’s tax collecting agency,” 13 June 2013, http://www.lexisnexis.com.proxy.lib.umich.edu/hottopics/lnacademic/)
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Frustration levels are rising among U.S.exportersas the number of North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) audits by Mexico's tax collecting agency continue to grow. Despite the current administration's promises global traders are still facing costly and time-consuming NAFTA audits and re-audits as they attempt to interpret mixed messages from the Mexican government NAFTA rules of origin in this industry are very complex and require review of multiple levels of processing, which usually occurs at different companies. It's hard enough having to go through a NAFTA verification audit once, but being subjected to re-auditing when you've already passed with flying colors seems unduly harsh on business." The SAT's policy inconsistencies are also tying many U.S. and Mexican companies up into knots, says trade expert Jorge Morales . The lack of uniformity is confusing for our clients," he continues. "Without clear guidance there is no way a company can maintain compliance. You have to know what the rules are before you can be expected to follow them."
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NAFTA increased Mexican tax audits on US companies
| 2,072 | 51 | 1,061 | 314 | 8 | 165 | 0.025478 | 0.525478 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,008 |
When the North American Free Trade Agreement was first signed in 1994, proponents said it would eventually create jobs for the U.S. economy.¶ 17 years later, a new report estimates, the American worker only has hundreds of thousands of job losses to show for it.¶ According to a report by Economic Policy Institute economist Robert Scott, entitled "Heading South: U.S.-Mexico trade and job displacement after NAFTA," an estimated 682,900 U.S. jobs have been "lost or displaced" because of the agreement and the resulting trade deficit.¶ The historic agreement, signed just three years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, tore down trade barriers between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, making trade and investment easier for businesses without allowing for the cross-border movement of labor. Despite the agreement being considered a boon for Mexico, the country's economy grew only 1.6 percent per capita on average between 1992 and 2007, The New York Times reported in 2009.¶ The EPI's calculation of 682,900 jobs lost to NAFTA takes into account jobs created as a result, too. Last year, for example, U.S. exports to Mexico supported 791,900 jobs. It's just that those jobs created pale in comparison to the 1.47 million U.S. jobs that would be necessary without the imports resulting from NAFTA, the report found.¶ Still, the number of jobs lost to NAFTA looks minimal when placed against the havoc freaked by the financial crisis. Only in 2008, at the height of the crisis, the U.S. economy hemorrhaged 2.6 million jobs, according to CNNMoney.¶ The U.S. is currently considering a similar trade agreement with South Korea, called U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA). KORUS, like NAFTA, could similarly displace American jobs, EPI warns.¶ Perhaps the most drastic switch post-NAFTA has been in the two country's trade deficit. In 1993, before the signing of NAFTA, the U.S. held a $1.6 billion trade surplus over their neighbor to the south, which supported 29,400 jobs. By 1997, the tides had turned, and Mexico laid claim to a much larger surplus of $16.6 billion. As of 2010, it's not even close. Mexico's trade surplus now hovers around $97.2 billion.¶ Jobs continue to be lost to NAFTA today. In the years 2007-2010, the U.S. economy has lost 116,400 as a result of the trade deficit created by NAFTA. And last year, the growth of Mexican auto exports to the United States alone created more Mexican jobs -- 30,400 -- than the entire U.S. auto industry.¶ It's the U.S. manufacturing sector that has suffered most mightily from NAFTA, alone accounting for 60.8 percent -- 415,000 total -- of the jobs lost to the agreement. Specifically, those making computer of electronic parts have accounted for 22 percent of all job losses, and motor vehicle and parts workers accounted for 15 percent of job losses.¶ Job losses haven't been limited to certain geographic regions, either, as all fifty states have lost jobs as a result. And while the states with the largest total number of job losses, California and Texas, do hug the southern border, it's actually manufacturing-heavy states to the north, such as Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky, that have lost the largest share of jobs to Mexico.
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Strachan 11—Staff Writer for The Huffington Post (“U.S. Economy Lost Nearly 700,000 Jobs Because Of NAFTA, EPI Says”, July 12, 2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/12/nafta-job-loss-trade-deficit-epi_n_859983.html)//RT
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When the North American Free Trade Agreement was first signed in 1994, proponents said it would eventually create jobs for the U.S. economy.¶ 17 years later, a new report estimates, the American worker only has hundreds of thousands of job losses to show for it The historic agreement, signed just three years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, tore down trade barriers between the U.S., Canada and Mexico, making trade and investment easier for businesses without allowing for the cross-border movement of labor. Despite the agreement being considered a boon for Mexico, the country's economy grew only 1.6 percent per capita on average between 1992 and 2007, The New York Times reported in 2009.¶ The EPI's calculation of 682,900 jobs lost to NAFTA takes into account jobs created as a result, too. U.S. exports to Mexico supported 791,900 jobs. It's just that those jobs created pale in comparison to the 1.47 million U.S. jobs that would be necessary without the imports resulting from NAFTA the report found.¶ Still, the number of jobs lost to NAFTA looks minimal when placed against the havoc freaked by the financial crisis. the height of the crisis, the U.S. economy hemorrhaged 2.6 million jobs The U.S. is currently considering a similar trade agreement with South Korea, called U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement (KORUS FTA). KORUS, like NAFTA, could similarly displace American jobs, the U.S. held a $1.6 billion trade surplus over their neighbor to the south, Mexico's trade surplus now hovers around $97.2 billion. Jobs continue to be lost to NAFTA today. , it's actually manufacturing-heavy states to the north, such as Michigan, Indiana and Kentucky, that have lost the largest share of jobs to Mexico.
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NAFTA hurt the US economy—Jobs
| 3,204 | 31 | 1,720 | 527 | 5 | 281 | 0.009488 | 0.533207 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,009 |
Services and manufacturing export growth slows under NAFTA. A key claim of supporters of NAFTA-style trade pacts is that they create jobs by promoting faster U.S. export growth. By contrast, growth of U.S. exports to countries that are not Free Trade Agreement (FTA) partners has exceeded U.S. export growth to countries that are FTA partners by 38 percent over the last decade.14 Manufacturing and services exports in particular grew slower after NAFTA took effect. Since NAFTA’s enactment, U.S. manufacturing exports to Canada and Mexico have grown at less than half the rate seen in the years before NAFTA.15 Even growth in services exports, which were supposed to do especially well under the trade pact given a presumed U.S. comparative advantage in services, dropped precipitously after NAFTA’s implementation. During NAFTA’s first decade, the average growth rate in U.S. services exports fell by 58 percent compared to the decade before NAFTA, and has remained well below the pre- NAFTA rate through the present.16¶ One million American jobs lost to NAFTA. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that the rising trade deficit with Mexico and Canada since NAFTA went into effect eliminated about one million net jobs in the United States by 2004.17 EPI further calculates that the ballooning trade deficit with Mexico alone destroyed about seven hundred thousand net U.S. jobs between NAFTA’s implementation and 2010.18 Moreover, official government data reveals that nearly five million U.S. manufacturing jobs have¶ been lost overall since NAFTA took effect.19 Obviously, not all of these lost U.S. manufacturing jobs – one out of every four of our manufacturing jobs – is due to NAFTA. The United States entered the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1995, China joined WTO in 2000 and the U.S. trade deficit with China soared thereafter. However, at the same time, given the methodology employed, it is also likely that the EPI estimates do not capture the full U.S. job loss associated with NAFTA. Service sector jobs have also been negatively impacted by NAFTA, as closed factories no longer demand services. EPI estimates that one third of the jobs lost due to the rising trade deficit under NAFTA were in non-manufacturing sectors of the economy.20
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Public Citizen 13 (Public Citizen, nonprofit advocacy group with offices in Washington and Austin, “NAFTA’s Broken Promises 1994-2013: Outcomes of the North American Free Trade Agreement,” 2013, http://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTAs-Broken-Promises.pdf, AL)
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Services and manufacturing export growth slows under NAFTA. Since NAFTA’s enactment, U.S. manufacturing exports to Canada and Mexico have grown at less than half the rate seen in the years before NAFTA.1 . During NAFTA’s first decade, the average growth rate in U.S. services exports fell by 58 percent compared to the decade before NAFTA, and has remained well below the pre- NAFTA rate through the present.16¶ One million American jobs lost to NAFTA. EPI further calculates that the ballooning trade deficit with Mexico alone destroyed about seven hundred thousand net U.S. jobs between NAFTA’s implementation and 2010. Service sector jobs have also been negatively impacted by NAFTA, as closed factories no longer demand services. EPI estimates that one third of the jobs lost due to the rising trade deficit under NAFTA were in non-manufacturing sectors of the economy.20
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Kills export growth and costs millions of jobs
| 2,262 | 47 | 875 | 361 | 8 | 139 | 0.022161 | 0.385042 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,010 |
Proponents of new trade agreements that build on NAFTA, such as the proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA), have frequently claimed that such deals create jobs and raise incomes in the United States. When the Senate recently approved President Bush’s request for fast-track trade negotiating authority1 for an FTAA, Bush called the bill’s passage a “historic moment” that would lead to the creation of more jobs and more sales of U.S. products abroad. Two weeks later at his economic forum in Texas, the president argued, “(i)t is essential that we move aggressively [to negotiate new trade pacts], because trade means jobs. More trade means higher incomes for American workers.”¶ The problem with these statements is that they misrepresent the real effects of trade on the U.S. economy: trade both creates and destroys jobs. Increases in U.S. exports tend to create jobs in this country, but increases in imports tend to reduce jobs because the imports displace goods that otherwise would have been made in the United States by domestic workers.¶ President Bush’s statements—and similar remarks from others in his administration and from members of both major parties in Congress—are based only on the positive effects of exports, ignoring the negative effects of imports. Such arguments are an attempt to hide the costs of new trade deals, in order to boost the reported benefits. These are effectively the same tactics that led to the bankruptcies of Enron, WorldCom, and several other major corporations.¶ The impact on employment of any change in trade is determined by its effect on the trade balance, the difference between exports and imports. Ignoring imports and counting only exports is like balancing a checkbook by counting only deposits but not withdrawals. The many officials, policy analysts, and business leaders who ignore the negative effects of imports and talk only about the benefits of exports are engaging in false accounting.¶ NAFTA supporters frequently tout the benefits of exports while remaining silent on the effects of rapid import growth (Scott 2000). Former President George H.W. Bush, whose administration negotiated NAFTA, recently claimed that “two million NAFTA-related jobs have been created in the United States since 1993″ (Bush 2002). But any evaluation of the impact of trade on the domestic economy must include the impact of both imports and exports. If the United States exports 1,000 cars to Mexico, many American workers are employed in their production. If, however, the United States imports 1,000 cars from Mexico rather than building them domestically, then a similar number of Americans who would have otherwise been employed in the auto industry will have to find other work.¶ Another critically important promise made by the promoters of NAFTA was that the United States would benefit because of increased exports to a large and growing consumer market in Mexico. This market, in turn, was to be based on an expansion of the middle class that, it was claimed, would grow rapidly due to the wealth created in Mexico by NAFTA. Thus, most U.S. exports were predicted to be consumer products destined for consumption in Mexico.¶ In fact, most U.S. exports to Mexico are parts and components that are shipped to Mexico and assembled into final products that are then returned to the United States. The number of products that Mexico assembles and exports—such as refrigerators, TVs, automobiles, and computers—has mushroomed under the NAFTA agreement. Many of these products are produced in the Maquiladora export processing zones in Mexico, where parts enter duty free and are re-exported to the United States in assembled products, with duties paid only on the value added in Mexico. The share of total U.S. exports to Mexico that is represented by Maquiladora imports has risen from 39% of U.S. exports in 1993 to 61% in 2002.2 The number of such plants increased from 2,114 in 1993 to 3,251 in 2002 (INEGI 2003a, 2003b).
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Scott 3 (Robert E. Scott, PhD in Economics form the University of California at Berkeley and BS in Engineering from Washington University at St. Louis, “The high price of ‘free’ trade: NAFTA’s failure has cost the United States jobs across the nation,” 17 November 2003, http://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp147/, AL)
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Proponents of NAFTA have frequently claimed that such deals create jobs and raise incomes in the United States. The problem with these statements is that they misrepresent the real effects of trade on the U.S. economy: trade both creates and destroys jobs. Increases in U.S. exports tend to create jobs in this country, but increases in imports tend to reduce jobs because the imports displace goods that otherwise would have been made in the United States by domestic workers. Such arguments are an attempt to hide the costs of new trade deals, in order to boost the reported benefits. These are effectively the same tactics that led to the bankruptcies of Enron, WorldCom, and several other major corporations. The impact on employment of any change in trade is determined by its effect on the trade balance, the difference between exports and imports. Ignoring imports and counting only exports is like balancing a checkbook by counting only deposits but not withdrawals NAFTA supporters frequently tout the benefits of exports while remaining silent on the effects of rapid import growth (Scott 2000). Former President George H.W. Bush, whose administration negotiated NAFTA, recently claimed that “two million NAFTA-related jobs have been created in the United States since 1993″ (Bush 2002). But any evaluation of the impact of trade on the domestic economy must include the impact of both imports and exports. If the United States exports 1,000 cars to Mexico, many American workers are employed in their production. If, however, the United States imports 1,000 cars from Mexico rather than building them domestically, then a similar number of Americans who would have otherwise been employed in the auto industry will have to find other work Thus, most U.S. exports were predicted to be consumer products destined for consumption in Mexico. In fact, most U.S. exports to Mexico are parts and components that are shipped to Mexico and assembled into final products that are then returned to the United States. The number of products that Mexico assembles and exports—such as refrigerators, TVs, automobiles, and computers—has mushroomed under the NAFTA agreement
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NAFTA hurts US – imports from Mexico kill jobs
| 3,987 | 46 | 2,169 | 644 | 9 | 346 | 0.013975 | 0.537267 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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3,011 |
NAFTA’s impact in the United States, however, has been often obscured by the “boom-and-bust” cycle that drove domestic consumption, investment, and speculation in the mid- and late 1990s. Between 1994 (when NAFTA was implemented) and 2000, total employment rose rapidly in the United States, causing overall unemployment to fall to record low levels. But unemployment began to rise early in 2001, and 2.4 million jobs were lost in the domestic economy between March 2001 and October 2003 (BLS 2003). These job losses have been primarily concentrated in the manufacturing sector, which has experienced a total decline of 2.4 million jobs since March 2001. As job growth has dried up in the economy, the underlying problems caused by U.S. trade deficits have become much more apparent, especially in manufacturing.¶ The United States has experienced steadily growing global trade deficits for nearly three decades, and these deficits accelerated rapidly after NAFTA took effect on January 1, 1994. For the purposes of this report it is necessary to distinguish between exports produced domestically and foreign exports, which are goods produced in other countries but exported to the United States, and then re-exported from the United States. Foreign exports made up 11.6% of total U.S. exports to Mexico and Canada in 2002. However, because only domestically produced exports generate jobs in the United States, our trade calculations are based only on domestic exports. Our measure of the net impact of trade, which is used here to calculate the employment content of trade, is the difference between domestic exports and total imports.3 We refer to this as “net exports,” to distinguish it from the more commonly reported gross trade balance. However, both concepts are measures of net trade flows.¶ Although U.S. domestic exports to its NAFTA partners have increased dramatically—with real growth of 95.2% to Mexico and 41% to Canada—growth in imports of 195.3% from Mexico and 61.1% from Canada overwhelmingly surpass export growth, as shown in Table 1. The resulting $30 billion U.S. net export deficit with these countries in 1993 increased by 281% to $85 billion in 2002 (all figures in inflation-adjusted 2002 dollars). As a result, NAFTA has led to job losses in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as shown in Figure 1. Through September 2003, the U.S. goods trade deficit with Mexico and Canada has increased 12% over the same period last year (U.S. Census Bureau 2003a). Job losses for the remainder of 2003 are likely to grow at a similar rate.
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Scott 3 (Robert E. Scott, PhD in Economics form the University of California at Berkeley and BS in Engineering from Washington University at St. Louis, “The high price of ‘free’ trade: NAFTA’s failure has cost the United States jobs across the nation,” 17 November 2003, http://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp147/, AL)
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NAFTA’s impact in the United States, however, has been often obscured by the “boom-and-bust” cycle that drove domestic consumption, investment total employment rose rapidly in the United States, causing overall unemployment to fall to record low levels. But unemployment began to rise early in 2001, and 2.4 million jobs were lost in the domestic economy between March 2001 and October 2003 (BLS 2003). These job losses have been primarily concentrated in the manufacturing sector, which has experienced a total decline of 2.4 million jobs since March 2001. The United States has experienced steadily growing global trade deficits for nearly three decades, and these deficits accelerated rapidly after NAFTA took effect on January 1, 1994. However, because only domestically produced exports generate jobs in the United States, our trade calculations are based only on domestic exports. Our measure of the net impact of trade, which is used here to calculate the employment content of trade, is the difference between domestic exports and total imports.3 We refer to this as “net exports,” to distinguish it from the more commonly reported gross trade balance. However, both concepts are measures of net trade flows NAFTA has led to job losses in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, as shown in Figure 1. Through September 2003, the U.S. goods trade deficit with Mexico and Canada has increased 12% over the same period last year (U.S. Census Bureau 2003a). Job losses for the remainder of 2003 are likely to grow at a similar rate.
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NAFTA hurts jobs and increases trade deficits
| 2,565 | 46 | 1,540 | 414 | 7 | 250 | 0.016908 | 0.603865 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,012 |
NAFTA has also contributed to growing income inequality and to the declining relative wages of U.S. workers without college degree, who made up 72.1% of the workforce in 2001 (Mishel et al. 2003, 163). NAFTA, however, is but one contributor to a larger process of globalization and growing structural trade deficits that has shaped the U.S. economy and society over the last few decades.6 Rapid growth in U.S. trade and foreign investment as a share of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) has played a large role in the growth of inequality in income distribution in the last 20 years. NAFTA has continued and accelerated international economic integration, and thus contributed to the growing tradeoffs that have accompanied this integration process.¶ The growth in U.S. trade and trade deficits has put downward pressure on the wages of workers without a college degree, especially those who have no formal education beyond a high school degree. This group includes most middle- and low-wage workers, including the 68.5% of the total workforce with the lowest pay, those earning a wage that is e¶ qual to 200% or less of poverty level wages in 2001 (Mishel et al. 2003, p. 134). In March 2000, the base year used for data, these workers earned wages of $16.93 or less per hour (See Appendix 1). These U.S. workers bear the brunt of the costs and pressures of globalization (Mishel et al. 2003, 181-89).¶ A large and growing body of research has demonstrated that expanding trade has reduced the price of import-competing products and put downward pressure on the real wages of workers engaged in producing those goods. Trade, however, is also expected to increase the wages of the workers producing exports, but growing trade deficits have meant that the number of workers hurt by imports has exceeded the number who have benefited through increased exports. Because the United States tends to import goods that make intensive use of skills of less-educated workers in production, it is not surprising to find that the increasing openness of the U.S. economy to trade has reduced the wages of less-educated workers relative to other workers in the United States.7
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Scott 3 (Robert E. Scott, PhD in Economics form the University of California at Berkeley and BS in Engineering from Washington University at St. Louis, “The high price of ‘free’ trade: NAFTA’s failure has cost the United States jobs across the nation,” 17 November 2003, http://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp147/, AL)
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NAFTA has also contributed to growing income inequality and to the declining relative wages of U.S. workers without college degree, who made up 72.1% of the workforce in 2001 Rapid growth in U.S. trade and foreign investment as a share of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) has played a large role in the growth of inequality in income distribution in the last 20 years. NAFTA has continued and accelerated international economic integration, and thus contributed to the growing tradeoffs that have accompanied this integration process U.S. trade and trade deficits has put downward pressure on the wages of workers without a college degree, especially those who have no formal education beyond a high school degree A large and growing body of research has demonstrated that expanding trade has reduced the price of import-competing products and put downward pressure on the real wages of workers engaged in producing those goods. Trade, however, is also expected to increase the wages of the workers producing exports, but growing trade deficits have meant that the number of workers hurt by imports has exceeded the number who have benefited through increased exports.
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Number of workers hurt by NAFTA far outweighs the tiny percent that benefitted
| 2,163 | 79 | 1,169 | 358 | 13 | 187 | 0.036313 | 0.522346 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,013 |
Globalization has put downward pressure on the wages of less-educated workers for three primary reasons. First, the steady growth in U.S. trade deficits over the past two decades has eliminated millions of manufacturing jobs and job opportunities in this country. Most displaced workers find jobs in other sectors where wages are much lower, which in turn leads to lower average wages for all U.S. workers. Recent surveys have shown that, even when displaced workers are able to find new jobs in the United States, they face a reduction in wages, with earnings declining by an average of over 13% (Mishel et al. 2001, 24). These displaced workers’ new jobs are likely to be in the service industry, the source of 98% of net new jobs created in the United States between 1989 and 2000, and a sector in which average compensation is only 81% of the manufacturing sector’s average (Mishel et al. 2003, 177). This competition also extends to export sectors, where pressures to cut product prices are often intense.¶ Second, the effects of growing U.S. trade and trade deficits on wages goes beyond just those workers exposed directly to foreign competition. As the trade deficit limits jobs in the manufacturing sector, the new supply of workers to the service sector (from displaced workers plus young workers not able to find manufacturing jobs) depresses the wages of those already holding service jobs. The growth in import competition and capital mobility under NAFTA has also contributed to stagnant and falling wages in the United States (Bronfenbrenner 1997a).¶ Finally, “threat effects” arise when firms threaten to close plants and move them abroad while bargaining with workers over wages and working conditions. Employers’ credible threats to relocate plants, outsource portions of their operations, and purchase intermediate goods and services directly from foreign producers can have a substantial impact on workers’ bargaining positions. The use of these kinds of threats is widespread. A Wall Street Journal survey in 1992 reported that one-fourth of almost 500 American corporate executives polled admitted that they were “very likely” or “somewhat likely” to use NAFTA as a bargaining chip to hold down wages (Tonelson 2000, 47). In a unique study of union organizing drives in 1993 though 1995, it was found that more than 50% of all employers made threats to close all or part of their plants during organizing drives (Bronfenbrenner 1997b). This study also found that plant closing threats in National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) union certification elections nearly doubled following the implementation of NAFTA, and that threat rates were substantially higher in mobile industries, where employers can credibly threaten to shut down or move their operations in response to union activity.
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Scott 3 (Robert E. Scott, PhD in Economics form the University of California at Berkeley and BS in Engineering from Washington University at St. Louis, “The high price of ‘free’ trade: NAFTA’s failure has cost the United States jobs across the nation,” 17 November 2003, http://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp147/, AL)
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First, the steady growth in U.S. trade deficits over the past two decades has eliminated millions of manufacturing jobs and job opportunities in this country. Most displaced workers find jobs in other sectors where wages are much lower, which in turn leads to lower average wages for all U.S. workers These displaced workers’ new jobs are likely to be in the service industry, the source of 98% of net new jobs created in the United States between 1989 and 2000, and a sector in which average compensation is only 81% of the manufacturing sector’s average (Mishel et al. 2003, 177). This competition also extends to export sectors, where pressures to cut product prices are often intense. Second, the effects of growing U.S. trade and trade deficits on wages goes beyond just those workers exposed directly to foreign competition. As the trade deficit limits jobs in the manufacturing sector, the new supply of workers to the service sector depresses the wages of those already holding service jobs. The growth in import competition and capital mobility under NAFTA has also contributed to stagnant and falling wages in the United States . Employers’ credible threats to relocate plants, outsource portions of their operations, and purchase intermediate goods and services directly from foreign producers can have a substantial impact on workers’ bargaining positions. The use of these kinds of threats is widespread
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Kills jobs and lowers wages
| 2,808 | 28 | 1,416 | 446 | 5 | 228 | 0.011211 | 0.511211 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
|
Michigan (7-week)
|
Unknown
|
2013
|
3,014 |
The U.S. economy created 21 million jobs between 1992 and March 2001 (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2003c). All of those gains are explained by growth in domestic consumption, investment, and government spending. The growth in the overall U.S. trade deficit eliminated production supported by three million jobs in the same period (Scott 2001). Thus, NAFTA and other sources of growing trade deficits were responsible for a change in the composition of employment, shifting workers from manufacturing to other sectors and, frequently, from good jobs to low-quality, low-pay work.¶ Since the onset of recession in early 2001, trade-displaced workers have been especially hard hit. Workers have experienced longer unemployment spells, and they have found it much more difficult to get new jobs. Many have concluded that their jobs in manufacturing will never come back. The growth of the trade deficit since early 2001 has contributed to an absolute decline of jobs, not just a shift in jobs from manufacturing to other sectors.¶ When trying to identify the causes behind trends such as the disappearance of manufacturing jobs, the rise in income inequality, and the decline in wages in the United States, NAFTA and growing trade deficits only provide part of the picture. Other major contributors include deregulation and privatization, declining rates of unionization, sustained high levels of unemployment, and technological change. While each of these factors has played some role, a large body of economic research has concluded that trade is responsible for at least 15% to 25% of the growth in wage inequality in the United States (U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commission 2000, 110-18). In addition, trade also has indirect effects on wage inequality by contributing to many of these other causes. For example, the decline of the manufacturing sector attributable to increased globaliza¶ tion has resulted in a reduction in unionization rates, since unions represent a larger share of the workforce in this sector than in other sectors of the economy.¶ Although NAFTA is not responsible for all U.S. labor market problems, it has made a significant contribution to the state of the U.S. economy, both directly and indirectly. Without major changes in NAFTA to address unequal levels of development and enforcement of labor rights and environmental standards, continued integration of North American markets will threaten the prosperity of a growing share of the U.S. workforce. Expansion of a NAFTA-style agreement, such as the proposed Free Trade Agreement of the Americas, will only worsen these problems. Past experience suggests that workers have good reasons to be concerned as NAFTA enters its second decade.
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Scott 3 (Robert E. Scott, PhD in Economics form the University of California at Berkeley and BS in Engineering from Washington University at St. Louis, “The high price of ‘free’ trade: NAFTA’s failure has cost the United States jobs across the nation,” 17 November 2003, http://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp147/, AL)
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All of those gains are explained by growth in domestic consumption, investment, and government spending. The growth in the overall U.S. trade deficit eliminated production supported by three million jobs in the same period Thus, NAFTA and other sources of growing trade deficits were responsible for a change in the composition of employment, shifting workers from manufacturing to other sectors and, frequently, from good jobs to low-quality, low-pay work. Since the onset of recession in early 2001, trade-displaced workers have been especially hard hit The growth of the trade deficit since early 2001 has contributed to an absolute decline of jobs, not just a shift in jobs from manufacturing to other sectors. When trying to identify the causes behind trends such as the disappearance of manufacturing jobs, the rise in income inequality, and the decline in wages in the United States, NAFTA and growing trade deficits only provide part of the picture. Other major contributors include deregulation and privatization, declining rates of unionization, sustained high levels of unemployment, and technological change. trade is responsible for at least 15% to 25% of the growth in wage inequality in the United States For example, the decline of the manufacturing sector attributable to increased globaliza tion has resulted in a reduction in unionization rates, since unions represent a larger share of the workforce in this sector than in other sectors of the economy. Although NAFTA is not responsible for all U.S. labor market problems, it has made a significant contribution to the state of the U.S. economy, both directly and indirectly
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Hurts jobs more than anything else
| 2,713 | 34 | 1,644 | 424 | 6 | 258 | 0.014151 | 0.608491 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
|
Michigan (7-week)
|
Unknown
|
2013
|
3,015 |
The United States had a small $1.6 billion trade surplus with Mexico in 1993, the year before NAFTA took effect. By ¶ 1997, the United States had developed a $16.6 billion trade deficit with Mexico, which increased to $97.2 billion in ¶ 2010, as shown in Table 1. Between 1997 and 2010, the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico increased $6.2 billion per year, ¶ or 14.6% per year.¶ This paper estimates the impact of that change in trade on employment by calculating the labor content of changes ¶ in the trade balance—the difference between exports and imports. For example, each $1 billion in U.S. auto parts ¶ exported to Mexico supports U.S. jobs, but each $1 billion in autos and trucks imported from Mexico displaces the ¶ workers who would have been making them in the United States. On balance, the net employment effect of trade flows ¶ is determined by changes in the trade balance. Growing trade deficits usually result in job displacement.¶ The employment impacts of trade deficits are assessed using an input-output model that estimates the direct and ¶ indirect labor requirements of producing output in a given domestic industry. The model includes 202 U.S. industries, ¶ 84 of which are in the manufacturing sector.9¶ The model estimates the amount of labor (number of jobs) required to ¶ produce a given volume of exports and the labor displaced when a given volume of imports is substituted for domestic ¶ output. The net of these two numbers is the estimated number of jobs displaced by changes in the trade balance, holding ¶ all else equal. ¶ U.S. exports to Mexico in 2010 supported 791,900 jobs, but U.S. imports displaced production that would have ¶ supported 1,474,800 jobs, as shown in the bottom half of Table 1. Therefore, the $97.2 billion U.S. trade deficit with ¶ Mexico in 2010 displaced 682,900 jobs.10 Since the United States had a small trade surplus in 1993 (not shown), all of ¶ those jobs were displaced between 1993 and 2010.11 On average, 40,200 jobs have been lost or displaced per year since ¶ NAFTA took effect.12¶ U.S. jobs displaced by the trade deficit with Mexico are a net drain on employment in trade-related industries, ¶ especially those in the manufacturing sector. Even if increased demand in other sectors absorbs all the workers displaced ¶ by trade (an unlikely event), job quality is likely to suffer, as many non-trade-related industries, such as retail and home ¶ health care, pay lower wages and have less comprehensive benefits than trade-related industries.
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Scott ’11 – Law Professor at Columbia Law School (Robert E, “Heading South: U.S.-Mexico Trade And Job Displacement After NAFTA,” EPI Briefing Paper, Economic Policy Institute, 5/3/11, Google Scholar)//ER
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The United States had a small $1.6 billion trade surplus with Mexico in 1993, the year before NAFTA the United States had developed a $16.6 billion trade deficit with Mexico, which increased to $97.2 billion in ¶ 2010, the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico increased $6.2 billion per year, ¶ or 14.6% per year.¶ each $1 billion in autos and trucks imported from Mexico displaces the ¶ workers who would have been making them in the United States. Growing trade deficits usually result in job displacement.¶ the $97.2 billion U.S. trade deficit with ¶ Mexico in 2010 displaced jobs Since the United States had a small trade surplus in 1993 all of ¶ those jobs were displaced between 1993 and 2010 40,200 jobs have been lost or displaced per year since ¶ NAFTA took effect U.S. jobs displaced by the trade deficit with Mexico are a net drain on employment in trade-related industries especially those in the manufacturing sector. Even if increased demand in other sectors absorbs all the workers displaced ¶ by trade job quality is likely to suffer, as many non-trade-related industries, such as retail and home ¶ health care, pay lower wages and have less comprehensive benefits than trade-related industries.
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NAFTA trade deficits hurt job growth in the US and Mexico
| 2,515 | 57 | 1,205 | 425 | 11 | 203 | 0.025882 | 0.477647 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
|
Michigan (7-week)
|
Unknown
|
2013
|
3,016 |
But a report by the Economic Policy Institute earlier this month analyzed the terms of the agreement and concluded it would lead to displacing 159,000 American jobs in its first seven years.¶ The same report, "Heading South: U.S.-Mexico Trade and job displacement after NAFTA," makes the case that the free-trade agreement with Mexico and Canada that went into effect in 1994 has cost 682,900 American jobs, three-fifths of them in the manufacturing sector.¶ In the three states of the Mid-South, while some jobs were created from increased exports, far more were lost when manufacturing production lines left the region as tariff barriers fell. Tennessee, which picked up 18,600 export-related jobs from 1994 to 2010, lost 35,100, for a net job loss of 16,400.¶ In Arkansas and Mississippi, the net job losses were 5,800 and 5,300, respectively.¶ The five congressional districts of the Greater Memphis area lost 7,500 jobs in that period, the report indicates.¶ Tennessee's 9th District, which includes Memphis, lost 1,000 jobs. Tennessee's 8th, which includes Millington, Covington, and Jackson, lost 1,400. Tennessee's 7th, which includes parts of Germantown, Collierville and Bartlett, lost 1,900.¶ Mississippi's 1st, which includes DeSoto and Marshall counties, lost 1,700, and Arkansas' 1st, which includes Crittenden County, Blytheville and Jonesboro, lost 1,500, it found.¶ As the report says, "Trade both creates and destroys jobs. While exports tend to support domestic employment, imports lead to job displacement: As imports are substituted for domestically produced goods, production that supports domestic jobs falls, displacing existing jobs and preventing new job creation..."¶ "Like NAFTA, the (Korean Free Trade Agreement) will likely result in growing trade deficits and hence U.S. job displacement, not economy-wide growth," it says.¶ The EPI, since 1986 a leading nonprofit think tank that analyzes the impact of economic policy on the middle- and lower classes, predicts in the 32-page report that domestic jobs in the motor vehicle and auto parts and computer and electronic parts industries, in particular, would be hardest hit if the Korean agreement goes through. Those are the same industries negatively affected by bilateral free trade agreements, it said.¶ Opponents of NAFTA as it worked its way through Congress in the early 1990s predicted job losses and a race to the bottom as good-paying jobs went to export assembly plants, known as maquiladoras, across the border in Mexico.¶ International Brotherhood of Teamsters president James P. Hoffa said in response to an inquiry by The Commercial Appeal last week that "EPI's findings come as no surprise to our membership.¶ "We have said from the beginning that NAFTA was a job killer. We shouldn't be sending American jobs with good American benefits to countries with cheap labor and no benefits. That is not fair trade," Hoffa said.
|
Sullivan ’11 – American Correspondent, graduate from Santa Clara University (Bartholomew, “Study says NAFTA free-trade pacts cost jobs,” McClatchy - Tribune Business News, 5/15/11, ProQuest)//ER
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a report by the Economic Policy Institute concluded it would lead to displacing 159,000 American jobs in its first seven years.¶ the free-trade agreement with Mexico and Canada that went into effect in 1994 has cost 682,900 American jobs, three-fifths of them in the manufacturing sector.¶ while some jobs were created from increased exports, far more were lost when manufacturing production lines left the region as tariff barriers fell. In Arkansas and Mississippi, the net job losses were 5,800 and 5,300, respectively.¶ As imports are substituted for domestically produced goods, production that supports domestic jobs falls, displacing existing jobs and preventing new job creation..."¶ The EPI a leading nonprofit think tank that analyzes the impact of economic policy on the middle- and lower classes, predicts that domestic jobs in the motor vehicle and auto parts and computer and electronic parts industries, in particular, would be hardest hit Those are the same industries negatively affected by bilateral free trade agreements Opponents of NAFTA predicted job losses and a race to the bottom as good-paying jobs went to export assembly plants, known as maquiladoras, across the border in Mexico.¶ "We have said from the beginning that NAFTA was a job killer. We shouldn't be sending American jobs with good American benefits to countries with cheap labor and no benefits. That is not fair trade
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NAFTA costs skilled labor in the US – kills the economy
| 2,916 | 56 | 1,407 | 452 | 11 | 222 | 0.024336 | 0.49115 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
|
Michigan (7-week)
|
Unknown
|
2013
|
3,017 |
The U.S. Trade Representative's website indicates the U.S. has been running a trade deficit with Mexico and Canada amounting to $41 billion in 2009 and $95 billion last year.¶ The EPI report says that the North American Free Trade Agreement made it attractive to companies all over the world to invest in Mexico to get duty-free access to the U.S. market. Foreign direct investment in Mexico tripled after the agreement was signed.¶ Tennessee tied with New Hampshire, Kentucky and Ohio for third place in the percentage of jobs lost because of the free-trade agreement, the report indicates. Only Michigan and Indiana, which saw the automobile industry decimated, fared worse as a percentage of their overall labor forces.¶ Another effect of NAFTA has been that wages have not kept pace with labor productivity, resulting in rising income inequality, and putting more pressure on the American manufacturing base, according to Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
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Sullivan ’11 – American Correspondent, graduate from Santa Clara University (Bartholomew, “Study says NAFTA free-trade pacts cost jobs,” McClatchy - Tribune Business News, 5/15/11, ProQuest)//ER
|
the U.S. has been running a trade deficit with Mexico and Canada amounting to $41 billion in 2009 and $95 billion last year.¶ Tennessee tied with New Hampshire, Kentucky and Ohio for third place in the percentage of jobs lost because of the free-trade agreement Only Michigan and Indiana, which saw the automobile industry decimated, fared worse Another effect of NAFTA has been that wages have not kept pace with labor productivity, resulting in rising income inequality, and putting more pressure on the American manufacturing base
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NAFTA causes trade deficits and job losses
| 992 | 43 | 533 | 159 | 7 | 86 | 0.044025 | 0.540881 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
|
Michigan (7-week)
|
Unknown
|
2013
|
3,018 |
Projections on trade balance, jobs prove wrong. In 1993, Gary Hufbauer and Jeffrey Schott of the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) projected that NAFTA would lead to a rising U.S. trade surplus with Mexico, which would create 170,000 net new jobs in the United States.8 This figure was trumpeted by the Clinton administration and other NAFTA proponents. Hufbauer and Schott based their projection on the observation that when export growth outpaces the growth of imports, more jobs are created by trade than are destroyed by trade.9 Instead of an improved trade balance with Canada and Mexico, however, NAFTA resulted in an explosion of imports from Mexico and Canada that led to huge U.S. trade deficits. According to Hufbauer and Schott’s own methodology, these deficits meant major job loss. Less than two years after NAFTA’s implementation, even before the depth of the NAFTA deficit became evident, Hufbauer recognized that his jobs prediction was incongruent with the facts, telling the Wall Street Journal, “The best figure for the jobs effect of NAFTA is approximately zero...the lesson for me is to stay away from job forecasting.”10¶ Huge new NAFTA trade deficit emerges. The U.S. trade deficit with Canada of $29.1 billion and the $2.5 billion surplus with Mexico in 1993 (the year before NAFTA took effect) turned into a combined NAFTA trade deficit of $181 billion by 2012.11 This represents an increase in the “NAFTA deficit” of 580 percent. These are inflation-adjusted numbers, meaning the difference is not due to inflation, but an increase in the deficit in real terms. The U.S. deficit with NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada has worsened considerably more than the U.S. deficit with countries with which we have not signed NAFTA- style deals. Since NAFTA, the average annual growth of the U.S. trade deficit has been 45 percent higher with Mexico and Canada than with countries that are not party to a NAFTA-style trade pact.12 Defenders of NAFTA argue that the NAFTA deficit is really only oil imports. Although oil accounts for a substantial portion of the trade deficit with Canada and Mexico, the oil share of the trade deficit with Canada and Mexico actually declined from 77 percent in 1993 to 55 percent in 2012.13
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Public Citizen 13 (Public Citizen, nonprofit advocacy group with offices in Washington and Austin, “NAFTA’s Broken Promises 1994-2013: Outcomes of the North American Free Trade Agreement,” 2013, http://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTAs-Broken-Promises.pdf, AL)
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Projections on trade balance, jobs prove wrong. Instead of an improved trade balance with Canada and Mexico, however, NAFTA resulted in an explosion of imports from Mexico and Canada that led to huge U.S. trade deficits deficits meant major job loss. Less than two years after NAFTA’s implementation, The U.S. trade deficit with Canada of $29.1 billion and the $2.5 billion surplus with Mexico in 1993 turned into a combined NAFTA trade deficit of $181 billion by 2012. The U.S. deficit with NAFTA partners Mexico and Canada has worsened considerably more than the U.S. deficit with countries with which we have not signed NAFTA- style deals.
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Increases trade deficit and costs jobs
| 2,259 | 38 | 642 | 369 | 6 | 106 | 0.01626 | 0.287263 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
|
Michigan (7-week)
|
Unknown
|
2013
|
3,019 |
Trade Adjustment Assistance data tracks the NAFTA jobs devastation. While EPI’s estimates of the job losses resulting from NAFTA summarize the overall effect of the trade deficit, the government itself tracks some of the layoffs known to have specifically occurred due to imports or offshoring through a government program called Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA). The TAA program is quite narrow, only covering a subset of jobs lost at manufacturing facilities, while excluding a portion of the jobs that have directly relocated to Mexico or Canada. The program is also difficult to qualify for, which has led some unions to direct workers to other assistance programs. Thus the NAFTA TAA numbers significantly undercount NAFTA job loss. Still, under TAA, over 720,000 workers were certified by 2010 (the most recent date for which public information is available) as having lost their jobs due to trade with Canada and Mexico or the shift in factories to those countries.21 A report produced by PIIE estimates that fewer than 10 percent of workers who lose their jobs in industries facing heavy import competition receive assistance under TAA.22 Thus, even the pro-NAFTA PIIE believes that TAA vastly underestimates the number of jobs lost due to trade-related displacement. The federal government also tried to determine specific jobs created by NAFTA rather than destroyed. The Department of Commerce established such a program, but after finding fewer than 1,500 specific jobs that could be attributed to NAFTA, the program was shut down because its findings were so bleak.23
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Public Citizen 13 (Public Citizen, nonprofit advocacy group with offices in Washington and Austin, “NAFTA’s Broken Promises 1994-2013: Outcomes of the North American Free Trade Agreement,” 2013, http://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTAs-Broken-Promises.pdf, AL)
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Trade Adjustment Assistance data tracks the NAFTA jobs devastation. the government itself tracks some of the layoffs known to have specifically occurred due to imports or offshoring through a government program called Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA). Thus the NAFTA TAA numbers significantly undercount NAFTA job loss. Still, under TAA, over 720,000 workers were certified by 2010 as having lost their jobs due to trade with Canada and Mexico or the shift in factories to those countries.21
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TAA data proves job loss
| 1,580 | 25 | 492 | 249 | 5 | 76 | 0.02008 | 0.305221 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
|
Michigan (7-week)
|
Unknown
|
2013
|
3,020 |
Corporate promises of job creation are broken. In addition to NAFTA supporters’ unfulfilled promises of overall job creation, specific companies also lobbied for NAFTA by claiming that the deal would boost their own hiring and reduce the need to move jobs to Mexico and Canada. In reality, the vast majority of their promises of job creation failed to materialize and many of these companies have actually moved operations to Mexico and Canada since NAFTA’s passage.24 For example, Caterpillar, Inc. said that NAFTA would eliminate the incentive to move jobs to Mexico and that it would export more equipment.25 However, in 2008 Caterpillar laid off 338 workers at its Mapleton, Illinois facility as it shifted production to Mexico, while 105 workers were laid off from its Pendergrass, Georgia facility due to rising imports from Mexico in the same year.26 Siemens made claims similar to Caterpillar’s, and yet it has eliminated over 1,500 U.S. jobs while shifting production to Mexico.27 Johnson and Johnson promised that it would hire hundreds of U.S. workers if NAFTA was approved, but it has ended up offshoring over 800 U.S. jobs to Mexico and Canada since NAFTA went into effect.28¶ Special investor privileges promote offshoring of American jobs. NAFTA’s special new rights and privileges for foreign investors eliminated many of the risks and costs that had been associated with relocating production to a low-wage venue. The incentives these rules offered for offshoring included a guaranteed minimum standard of treatment that Mexico had to provide to relocating U.S. firms, which went above and beyond the treatment provided to domestic firms. This included the right for foreign investors to directly challenge the Mexican government in United Nations and World Bank tribunals, demanding compensation for environmental, zoning, health and other government regulatory actions of general application that investors claimed as undermining their expected profits. (Some of these cases are described below.) By providing foreign investors access to foreign tribunals, NAFTA also eliminated the risk of having to rely on Mexico’s domestic court system. The protections granted to corporations
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Public Citizen 13 (Public Citizen, nonprofit advocacy group with offices in Washington and Austin, “NAFTA’s Broken Promises 1994-2013: Outcomes of the North American Free Trade Agreement,” 2013, http://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTAs-Broken-Promises.pdf, AL)
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Corporate promises of job creation are broken. In reality, the vast majority of their promises of job creation failed to materialize and many of these companies have actually moved operations to Mexico and Canada since NAFTA’s passage.24 For example, Caterpillar, Inc. said that NAFTA would eliminate the incentive to move jobs to Mexico and that it would export more equipment.25 However, in 2008 Caterpillar laid off 338 workers at its Mapleton, Illinois facility as it shifted production to Mexico, Siemens made claims similar to Caterpillar’s, and yet it has eliminated over 1,500 U.S. jobs while shifting production to Mexico.27 Johnson and Johnson promised that it would hire hundreds of U.S. workers if NAFTA was approved, but it has ended up offshoring over 800 U.S. jobs to Mexico and Canada since NAFTA went into effect The incentives these rules offered for offshoring included a guaranteed minimum standard of treatment that Mexico had to provide to relocating U.S. firms, which went above and beyond the treatment provided to domestic firms.
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Promotes offshoring which further devastates unemployment rates
| 2,199 | 64 | 1,054 | 338 | 7 | 168 | 0.02071 | 0.497041 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
|
Michigan (7-week)
|
Unknown
|
2013
|
3,021 |
The Underlying Cause of the Subprime Crisis and the NAFTA Linkage¶ From the initial pressures under NAFTA, and with the implementation of a competitiveness strategy resting on rigorous anti-inflationary monetary and fiscal policies in both Canada and Mexico, this growing trade and financial liberalization imparted a deflationary bias on the evolution of money and real wages as well as prices in the respective countries on the North American continent while widening the share of profit (see Baragar and Seccareccia 2008; Seccareccia 2007). On the other hand, for the NAFTA model to actually succeed, high consumption (and therefore high wages), especially in the United States, is needed to sustain aggregate demand and their ELG strategies, not only for Canada’s and Mexico’s economies but also for the rest of the world economy.¶ This pattern of growth for North America—based on high consumption growth for the United States and a low-inflation environment (because of austere macroeconomic policy, low labor costs in Mexico, and low energy and raw materials prices from Canada)—did occur, and the ELG model quickly extended its tentacles beyond North America as growing industrial giants, such as China, began to replace Mexico as a source of labor-intensive manufactured products (see Blecker and Seccareccia forthcoming). However, the impact this had on real wage growth on each of the three NAFTA countries is of great interest. As evidenced from the series provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, real wages (at least for the manufacturing sector) grew somewhat in the United States, grew rather marginally in Canada, and actually declined during the early years of NAFTA in Mexico, only to reach a level in 2006 that was just marginally above its 1996 level!¶ Interestingly, all three countries showed practically no growth and, in one case, there was a significant decline in real wages until the turn of the millennium. Real wages showed some upward trend in the United States, reaching a plateau between 2003 and 2005, but grew only by an average of less than 1 percent annually for the decade between 1996 and 2007 as a whole, which was well below the trend of growth in productivity for that same period. Although one could not argue outright that the growing U.S. trade deficit (which was partly a by-product of this reconfiguration of both the North American and world economy based on outwardlooking measures to stimulate growth) was actually a source of impoverishment for the rest of the world (see Scott 2007), the experience of Mexico in the NAFTA context confirms that real wages collapsed during the early NAFTA era and have not grown much beyond their pre-NAFTA levels even during the first decade of the twenty-first century. This labor market state of anemic real wage growth led to another undesirable consequence when looked at from the angle of income inequality, primarily in Canada and the United States. Although the evidence for Mexico does suggest some improved, yet fluctuating pattern of income distribution, throughout the NAFTA era both the United States and Canada witnessed a significant growth in income inequality; and therefore, contrary to what the supporters of NAFTA marketed, the rising tide of trade did not lift all boats! The ratio of the share of the highest income quintile to that of the lowest income quintile for the three NAFTA countries was a simple measure of income disparity adopted for the purpose (Figure 2).¶ Starting with the FTA, from 1989 onward, income inequality grew a great deal in Canada until this ratio reached a plateau by the turn of the twenty-first century. In the case of the United States, the ratio rose consistently since the early 1990s to 2006 and, by 2005/6, actually surpassed that of Mexico according to our simple measure of income inequality. Undoubtedly other factors affecting income distribution were also at work, reflecting such tendencies as the long-term pattern of deindustrialization and growth of the service sector; but, as the shaded area for the FTA and then the NAFTA period suggests, trade liberalization must have contributed by accelerating this trend toward greater income inequality in both Canada and the United States.¶ With a relatively flat real wage movement in the United States and Canada that was accompanied by growing income disparities, how then could domestic consumption grow quickly enough to absorb the rising quantity of raw materials and manufactured goods being produced in Canada, Mexico, and elsewhere to supply what became a growing U.S. consumption binge? The answer of course is that it was the fairly loose monetary policy during the Greenspan era coupled with a plethora of financial innovations made possible in an age of financial deregulation that promoted a significant rise in consumer spending.¶ The rising inequality accompanied by growing accessibility to credit promoted household indebtedness on a scale not hitherto seen. As shown in the left-hand panel of Figure 3, ratios of household debt to disposable personal income exploded beginning in the mid-1990s and peaked as house prices reached a plateau by 2006/7. The plummeting of house prices brought about by significant monetary tightening (as the effective federal funds rate rose from an average of 1.13 to 5.02 percent between 2003 and 2007) was the coup de grâce that ended what was otherwise a typical housing bubble and triggered the subprime debacle starting in the summer of 2007. In fact, even though all forms of consumer credit expanded during the pre-2007 era, the more interest-sensitive residential mortgages dominated over all other forms of household debt. ¶ Despite the rising problem of effective demand engendered by flat real wages and increasing income inequality, this growing household indebtedness and plummeting saving rate initially spurred growth forward (either domestically or via exports) in the three NAFTA economies. But, as predicted by such distinguished scholars as ¶ Wynne Godley since the late 1990s, it was only a matter of time before the United States, together with its trading partners, would face a severe collapse when looked at from the angle of the net financial imbalances across the wide sectors of the U.S. economy (see Godley 1999; Godley and Izurieta 2001).¶ Securitization made it easier for the financial sector to spread, as well as to hide, the high risk associated with ballooning household debt. Eventually, as evidenced by the subprime crisis, growing securitization merely ensured that the speed and breadth of the financial collapse’s propagation across the financial sector would be all the more severe as these subprime mortgages were repackaged into various kinds of financial derivatives—the so-called collateralized debt obligations—held by investment banks and other financial institutions both in the United States and internationally. However, the seed of the financial collapse was the underlying imbalance between debt and income. The high consumer spending that was pushing forward household debt ratios throughout the NAFTA era (see Figure 3) simply could not be sustained without a significant rise in real incomes for those low-income households accumulating ever more debt during the pre-2007 period.
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Correa and Seccareccia 2009—Mario Seccareccia has been teaching at the University of Ottawa since 1978. He has authored/co-authored or co-edited some eight books or monographs, and has published some 75 articles or chapters of books. He is also editor of the New York-based International Journal of Political Economy. His principal research interests are in the areas of monetary economics, history of economic thought and methodology, labour economics, and Canadian economic history. Eugenia Correa is a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. ["The United States Financial Crisis and Its NAFTA Linkages." International Journal Of Political Economy 38.2 (2009): 70-99. Political Science Complete. JSTOR. 27 July 2013]//MM
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From the initial pressures under NAFTA, and with the implementation of a competitiveness strategy resting on rigorous anti-inflationary monetary and fiscal policies in both Canada and Mexico, this growing trade and financial liberalization imparted a deflationary bias on the evolution of money and real wages as well as prices for the NAFTA model to actually succeed, high consumption (and therefore high wages), especially in the United States, is needed to sustain aggregate demand and their ELG strategies, not only for Canada’s and Mexico’s economies but also for the rest of the world economy. This pattern did occur, and the ELG model quickly extended its tentacles beyond North America as growing industrial giants, such as China, began to replace Mexico as a source of labor-intensive manufactured products the impact this had on real wage growth on each of the three NAFTA countries is of great interest real wages (at least for the manufacturing sector) grew somewhat in the United States, grew rather marginally in Canada, and actually declined during the early years of NAFTA in Mexico, only to reach a level in 2006 that was just marginally above its 1996 level! Interestingly, all three countries showed practically no growth and, in one case, there was a significant decline in real wages until the turn of the millennium. Real wages grew only by an average of less than 1 percent annually for the decade between 1996 and 2007 as a whole, which was well below the trend of growth in productivity for that same period the experience of Mexico in the NAFTA context confirms that real wages collapsed during the early NAFTA era and have not grown much beyond their pre-NAFTA levels even during the first decade of the twenty-first century. This labor market state of anemic real wage growth led to income inequality, primarily in Canada and the United States. both the United States and Canada witnessed a significant growth in income inequality; me inequality grew a great deal in Canada until this ratio reached a plateau by the turn of the twenty-first century. In the case of the United States, the ratio rose consistently since the early 1990s to 2006 and, by 2005/6, actually surpassed that of Mexico With a relatively flat real wage movement in the United States and Canada that was accompanied by growing income disparities, how then could domestic consumption grow quickly enough to absorb the rising quantity of raw materials and manufactured goods being produced in Canada, Mexico, and elsewhere to supply what became a growing U.S. consumption binge The plummeting of house prices brought about by significant monetary tightening was the coup de grâce that ended what was otherwise a typical housing bubble and triggered the subprime debacle starting in the summer of 2007 Despite the rising problem of effective demand engendered by flat real wages and increasing income inequality, this growing household indebtedness and plummeting saving rate initially spurred growth forward (either domestically or via exports) in the three NAFTA economies it was only a matter of time before the United States, together with its trading partners, would face a severe collapse when looked at from the angle of the net financial imbalances across the wide sectors of the U.S. economy the seed of the financial collapse was the underlying imbalance between debt and income. The high consumer spending that was pushing forward household debt ratios throughout the NAFTA era simply could not be sustained without a significant rise in real incomes for those low-income households accumulating ever more debt during the pre-2007 period.
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NAFTA hurt wages and growth and caused income inequality—demand couldn’t meet the amount of consumption, caused the financial crisis
| 7,286 | 132 | 3,647 | 1,152 | 19 | 590 | 0.016493 | 0.512153 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,022 |
Wage losses outweigh cheaper prices under NAFTA. Many proponents of NAFTA-style trade acknowledge that it will cause the loss of some American jobs, but argue that U.S. workers still win overall by being able to purchase cheaper goods imported from abroad. First, this promise has failed to materialize for many critical consumer items, such as food. Despite a 188 percent rise in food imports from Canada and Mexico under NAFTA,38 the average nominal price of food in the United States has¶ jumped 63 percent since the deal went into effect.39 Second, even those reductions in consumer goods prices that have materialized have not been sufficient to offset the losses to wages under NAFTA. The Center for Economic and Policy Research discovered that when comparing the lower prices of cheaper goods to the income lost from low-wage competition under current trade policy, the trade-related losses in wages outweigh the gains in cheaper goods for the vast majority of U.S. workers. U.S. workers without college degrees (over 65 percent of the workforce) have likely lost an amount equal to 12.2 percent of their wages under NAFTA-style trade even after accounting for the benefits of cheaper goods, meaning a net loss of almost $3,300 per year for a worker earning the median annual wage of $27,000.40
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Public Citizen 13 (Public Citizen, nonprofit advocacy group with offices in Washington and Austin, “NAFTA’s Broken Promises 1994-2013: Outcomes of the North American Free Trade Agreement,” 2013, http://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTAs-Broken-Promises.pdf, AL)
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Wage losses outweigh cheaper prices under NAFTA. Despite a 188 percent rise in food imports from Canada and Mexico under NAFTA,38 the average nominal price of food in the United States has¶ jumped 63 percent since the deal went into effect.39 Second, even those reductions in consumer goods prices that have materialized have not been sufficient to offset the losses to wages under NAFTA when comparing the lower prices of cheaper goods to the income lost from low-wage competition under current trade policy, the trade-related losses in wages outweigh the gains in cheaper goods for the vast majority of U.S. workers.
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Wage loses outweigh cheaper prices
| 1,301 | 35 | 618 | 213 | 5 | 101 | 0.023474 | 0.474178 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,023 |
B. The Metalclad Case Metalclad Corporation was a U.S. waste disposal company operating a Mexican subsidiary ("COTERIN") that sought a municipal license to operate a hazardous waste treatment facility near Guadalcazar, Mexico.41 The license was rejected, although Metalclad did acquire three permits from Mexican state and federal authorities. 42 Metalclad, upon the assurances of federal and local regulators that no license was needed, began to build its facility without a municipal license, although it chose to apply for this permit, having already been rejected once.43 After Metalclad had already invested considerable sums in the project and completed construction, but before any permit was issued, the state government declared the entire area an ecological zone, effectively closing down Metalclad's operation and rendering its investment worthless. 4 Metalclad then sought the protection of NAFTA Chapter 11 by filing claims against Mexico for violating Articles 1105 and 1110.45 The tribunal made history by ruling against a State and in favor of the foreign investor, going so far as to award damages because Mexico had violated Articles 1105 and 1110(1).46¶ On appeal, Mexico argued that "[t]he tribunal committed two acts in excess of jurisdiction in connection with Article 1105.47 Mexico first argued that "the Tribunal used NAFTA's transparency provisions as a basis for finding a breach of Article 1105.” 48 Second, Mexico contended that the Tribunal then created essentially new transparency obligations that have no basis in the text of NAFTA.49 Furthermore, Mexico argued that the tribunal inappropriately interpreted Mexican domestic law.50 The Supreme Court of British Columbia, the appellate court, found these arguments compelling enough to warrant a partial reversal of the tribunal's decision (a first).51 The tribunal had construed expropriation in Article 1110 too broadly, making even incidental interference with an investment compensable even when the host State derived no benefit from the interference.52 The appeals court did not explicitly reject this broad expropriation idea but used a different line of reasoning, one less nebulous and more tailor-made to this particular case, thereby "dulling the edge of the proverbial sword" by approaching the issue more cautiously. 53¶ The Metalclad case, when considered in conjunction with the Methanex case (discussed infra) creates serious concerns about problems of overly broad and too-narrow interpretations and generally inconsistent rulings from NAFTA Chapter 11 tribunals. Because these NAFTA tribunals only bind the parties to the arbitration and have no precedential value, the decisions made by one tribunal technically have no effect on any future arbitrations. It is probably naïve, however, to think that later tribunals never look back on the prior holdings for help and support.54
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Kagalwalla 2009—Adnan Kagalwalla, JD The Ohio State University Michael E. Moritz College of Law [Entrepreneurial Bus. L.J. 112 2008-2009/lexis]//MM
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45 The tribunal made history by ruling against a State and in favor of the foreign investor, going so far as to award damages because Mexico had violated Articles 1105 and 1110(1) , Mexico contended that the Tribunal then created essentially new transparency obligations that have no basis in the text of NAFTA.49 Furthermore, Mexico argued that the tribunal inappropriately interpreted Mexican domestic law.50 The Supreme Court of British Columbia, the appellate court, found these arguments compelling enough to warrant a partial reversal of the tribunal's decision The Metalclad case, when considered in conjunction with the Methanex case (discussed infra) creates serious concerns about problems of overly broad and too-narrow interpretations and generally inconsistent rulings from NAFTA Chapter 11 tribunals. Because these NAFTA tribunals only bind the parties to the arbitration and have no precedential value, the decisions made by one tribunal technically have no effect on any future arbitrations. It is probably naïve, however, to think that later tribunals never look back on the prior holdings for help and support.54
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NAFTA rulings are inconsistent and harmful to government law
| 2,878 | 60 | 1,130 | 429 | 9 | 171 | 0.020979 | 0.398601 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,024 |
Thus far this Note has briefly surveyed some of the major disputes that have been brought before a NAFTA Chapter 11 tribunal. This Note is meant to provide a solid surface from which to make some observations about how these tribunals are affecting the legal system of the U.S. and likely also those of Canada and Mexico. Each case study, though brief, was meant to highlight a different problem and potential effects on a NAFTA Party's legal system.¶ NAFTA Chapter 11 tribunals, as they stand, can be capricious and arbitrary, meddlesome in the laws of States, damaging to the finality of judicial awards and potentially can have ramifications even between the relations of two sovereign States. This Note does not intend to be partisan and demand either a repeal or a massive overhaul of NAFTA Chapter 11.¶ Instead, this Note merely seeks to make the potential pitfalls more noticeable and urge some stronger, more coherent and less nebulous boundaries to NAFTA Chapter 11 tribunals so that they can operate within well-defined limits and not tempt the avarice of investors at the expense of the environment, public health and the autonomy of States and their legal systems.
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Kagalwalla 2009—Adnan Kagalwalla, JD The Ohio State University Michael E. Moritz College of Law [Entrepreneurial Bus. L.J. 112 2008-2009/lexis]//MM
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This Note is meant to provide a solid surface from which to make some observations about how these tribunals are affecting the legal system of the U.S. and likely also those of Canada and Mexico NAFTA Chapter 11 tribunals, as they stand, can be capricious and arbitrary, meddlesome in the laws of States, damaging to the finality of judicial awards and potentially can have ramifications even between the relations of two sovereign States.
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Chapter 11 damages relations, impedes state sovereignty
| 1,176 | 55 | 439 | 196 | 7 | 73 | 0.035714 | 0.372449 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,025 |
NAFTA partners lead the world in trade pact attacks on the United States. Despite claims that NAFTA would help deepen alliances with Mexico and Canada, these two countries are among the top challengers of U.S. policies – not only in NAFTA – but also at the WTO, where Canada has brought three times more cases against the United States than the United States has brought against Canada.102 (Mexico has brought nine cases against the United States, while the United States has filed six cases against Mexico.) Next to the European Union, Canada has launched more WTO cases against the United States than any other country, while Mexico ranks as the fourth most frequent challenger of U.S. policy in the WTO.103¶ NAFTA countries challenge U.S. consumer protection rules. Among the WTO cases brought against the United States by its NAFTA partners are Canada and Mexico’s joint 2009 challenge of a popular U.S. meat country-of-origin labeling policy. The United States instituted the policy so consumers could make informed choices about their purchases of meat. In 2012 Canada and Mexico won the case in a decision by the WTO Appellate Body, meaning that the United States must weaken or eliminate its country-of- origin meat labeling requirement or risk facing trade sanctions from Canada and Mexico. Continuing its attacks on U.S. consumer safety measures, Mexico even joined in on Indonesia’s successful WTO attack on U.S. measures to reduce teenage smoking.
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Public Citizen 13 (Public Citizen, nonprofit advocacy group with offices in Washington and Austin, “NAFTA’s Broken Promises 1994-2013: Outcomes of the North American Free Trade Agreement,” 2013, http://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTAs-Broken-Promises.pdf, AL)
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NAFTA partners lead the world in trade pact attacks on the United States. Mexico and Canada are among the top challengers of U.S. policies – not only in NAFTA – but also at the WTO Next to the European Union, Canada has launched more WTO cases against the United States than any other country, while Mexico ranks as the fourth most frequent challenger of U.S. policy in the WTO.103¶ NAFTA countries challenge U.S. consumer protection rules. Among the WTO cases brought against the United States by its NAFTA partners are Canada and Mexico’s joint 2009 challenge of a popular U.S. meat country-of-origin labeling policy. Canada and Mexico won the case in a decision by the WTO Appellate Body Mexico even joined in on Indonesia’s successful WTO attack on U.S. measures to reduce teenage smoking.
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NAFTA increased trade conflicts
| 1,459 | 32 | 793 | 236 | 4 | 134 | 0.016949 | 0.567797 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,026 |
There is no shortage of statistics making Nafta look bad. Free traders' claims in the early '90s that Nafta would create hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs, turn the slight deficit with Mexico into a $10 billion annual trade surplus, and eliminate illegal immigration proved wildly off the mark. Instead, America's deficit with Mexico passed $74 billion in 2007. The U.S. has also shed 3 million manufacturing jobs since the early '90s.
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Engardio et. al 8 (Pete Engardio, Geri Smith, and Jane Sasseen, Contributors to the Bloomberg Businessweek Magazine, “What You Don’t Know abuot NAFTA”, http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2008-03-18/what-you-dont-know-about-nafta)
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There is no shortage of statistics making Nafta look bad. Free traders' claims in the early '90s that Nafta would create hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs, turn the slight deficit with Mexico into a $10 billion annual trade surplus, and eliminate illegal immigration Instead, America's deficit with Mexico passed $74 billion in 2007. The U.S. has also shed 3 million manufacturing jobs since the early '90s.
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Predictions failed—NAFTA has increased deficit with Mexico and decreased manufacturing jobs
| 436 | 91 | 408 | 72 | 11 | 67 | 0.152778 | 0.930556 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,027 |
NAFTA undermines safety standards for imported food. Since NAFTA was enacted, imports of food from Canada and Mexico have surged 188 percent.46 NAFTA required the United States to replace its long-standing requirement that only meat and poultry meeting U.S. safety standards could be imported. Under this standard, only meat from plants specifically approved by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) inspectors could gain access. NAFTA required that meat and poultry for all facilities must be provided access if Mexico and Canada could show that their overall safety and inspection systems provide “equivalent” levels of protection, even if core aspects of U.S. food safety requirements were not met. “Equivalence” was not defined in NAFTA. The resulting equivalence determinations have allowed meat imports even after infrequent USDA spot checks of a sample of Canadian and Mexican processing plants found major health threats.47 Despite such threats, under NAFTA U.S. consumers are eating increasing quantities of meat imported from Mexico and Canada. For instance, U.S. beef imports from both countries have risen 130 percent since NAFTA took effect – Americans now consume about $1.3 billion worth of imported NAFTA beef each year.48
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Public Citizen 13 (Public Citizen, nonprofit advocacy group with offices in Washington and Austin, “NAFTA’s Broken Promises 1994-2013: Outcomes of the North American Free Trade Agreement,” 2013, http://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTAs-Broken-Promises.pdf, AL)
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NAFTA undermines safety standards for imported food. Since NAFTA was enacted, imports of food from Canada and Mexico have surged 188 percent.46 that their overall safety and inspection systems provide “equivalent” levels of protection, even if core aspects of U.S. food safety requirements were not met. “Equivalence” was not defined in NAFTA. The resulting equivalence determinations have allowed meat imports even after infrequent USDA spot checks of a sample of Canadian and Mexican processing plants found major health threats.
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Undermines ability to regulate foods
| 1,238 | 37 | 531 | 187 | 5 | 79 | 0.026738 | 0.42246 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,028 |
Surging food imports overwhelm food inspections. A dangerous side effect of the flood of imports has been the inability of U.S. inspectors to ensure the safety of the food supply. The Food and Drug Administration only inspects 1.5 percent of the food imports that it regulates (vegetables, fruit, seafood, grains, dairy, and animal feed) at the border. Imported seafood rates are even lower, with FDA checking only 0.1 percent of imported seafood for drug residues.49 Only 9 percent of beef, pork, and chicken is inspected at the border by the USDA.50 Among the most notorious NAFTA-related food borne illness outbreaks was the hepatitis-A infection of Michigan schoolchildren and teachers in 1997.51 A severe hepatitis-A outbreak related to strawberries imported from Mexico resulted in 163 children and teachers becoming ill, several seriously.52
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Public Citizen 13 (Public Citizen, nonprofit advocacy group with offices in Washington and Austin, “NAFTA’s Broken Promises 1994-2013: Outcomes of the North American Free Trade Agreement,” 2013, http://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTAs-Broken-Promises.pdf, AL)
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Surging food imports overwhelm food inspections. The Food and Drug Administration only inspects 1.5 percent of the food imports that it regulates border. Imported seafood rates are even lower, with FDA checking only 0.1 percent of imported seafood for drug residues.49 Only 9 percent of beef, pork, and chicken is inspected A severe hepatitis-A outbreak related to strawberries imported from Mexico resulted in 163 children and teachers becoming ill, several seriously.52
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Rate of food imported overwhelms ability to inspect food
| 848 | 56 | 471 | 131 | 9 | 71 | 0.068702 | 0.541985 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,029 |
The figures above demonstrate that the FDA’s ability to protect the public with regard to imports has essentially ceased to exist. The lack of FDA authority regarding ensuring the safety of overseas production, and the abysmal level of the FDA’s import inspection funding, reflect a disconnect between the reality of a food supply comprised of a significant amount of imported food and a regulatory mindset that predates WTO and NAFTA and the import flood they set off. The FDA’s budget for food safety has failed to keep pace with the increase in foreign food shipments. The percent of U.S. food safety dollars going to the FDA has remained flat over the last five years and the FDA’s budget for inspecting foreign seafood processing facilities dropped to zero in the 2007 budget.28 All that remains as a last line of defense for consumers are a few border inspectors looking at less than 1 percent of FDA-regulated products entering the United States.
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Public Citizen 7 (Public Citizen, nonprofit advocacy group with offices in Washington and Austin, “Trade Deficit in Food Safety: Proposed NAFTA Expansions Replicate Limits on U.S. Food Safety Policy That Are Contributing to Unsafe Food Imports,” July 2007, http://www.citizen.org/documents/FoodSafetyReportFINAL.pdf, AL)
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FDA’s ability to protect the public with regard to imports has essentially ceased to exist. The lack of FDA authority regarding ensuring the safety of overseas production, and the abysmal level of the FDA’s import inspection funding, reflect a disconnect between the reality of a food supply comprised of a significant amount of imported food and a regulatory mindset that predates WTO and NAFTA and the import flood they set off. The percent of U.S. food safety dollars going to the FDA has remained flat over the last five years All that remains as a last line of defense for consumers are a few border inspectors looking at less than 1 percent of FDA-regulated products entering the United States.
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Undermines ability to regulate food
| 953 | 36 | 700 | 160 | 5 | 119 | 0.03125 | 0.74375 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,030 |
NAFTA grants multinational corporations new privileges and an extreme enforcement process.¶ NAFTA included an array of new investment privileges and protections that were unprecedented in scope and power. NAFTA elevates foreign investors to the level of sovereign signatory governments, uniquely empowering corporations to skirt domestic laws and courts and privately enforce the terms of the public treaty by directly challenging governments’ public interest policies before World Bank and U.N. tribunals. The tribunals are comprised of three private sector attorneys, unaccountable to any electorate, who rotate between serving as “judges” and bringing cases for corporations against governments.62 This process is called “investor-state” enforcement. Only commercial interests have standing to challenge government policy, not unions or consumer groups. Despite being embedded in a “trade” agreement, NAFTA’s sweeping investor privileges have nothing to do with the flow of goods across borders. Ostensibly, this investor-state regime was intended to provide foreign investors a venue to obtain compensation when their factory or land was expropriated by a government that did not have a reliable domestic court system. However, the actual NAFTA provisions expand far beyond that reasonable safeguard, providing foreign investors extreme privileges not available to domestic firms, and creating incentives to offshore investments to gain the new privileges. For example, the new protections include a guaranteed “minimum standard of treatment” that host governments must provide, which investor-state tribunals have increasingly interpreted as a foreign investor’s “right” to a regulatory framework that conforms to their expectations.
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Public Citizen 13 (Public Citizen, nonprofit advocacy group with offices in Washington and Austin, “NAFTA’s Broken Promises 1994-2013: Outcomes of the North American Free Trade Agreement,” 2013, http://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTAs-Broken-Promises.pdf, AL)
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NAFTA grants multinational corporations new privileges and an extreme enforcement process.¶ NAFTA elevates foreign investors to the level of sovereign signatory governments, uniquely empowering corporations to skirt domestic laws and courts and privately enforce the terms of the public treaty by directly challenging governments’ public interest policies before World Bank and U.N. tribunals. Only commercial interests have standing to challenge government policy Despite being embedded in a “trade” agreement, NAFTA’s sweeping investor privileges have nothing to do with the flow of goods across borders. the actual NAFTA provisions providing foreign investors extreme privileges not available to domestic firms, and creating incentives to offshore investments to gain the new privileges.
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NAFTA gives corporations too much power
| 1,738 | 40 | 790 | 241 | 6 | 109 | 0.024896 | 0.452282 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,031 |
NAFTA cases target health laws, environmental regulations and even the behavior of government officials. The U.S. Ethyl Corporation used NAFTA’s investor-state system in the late 1990s to reverse a Canadian environmental ban of the carcinogenic gasoline additive MMT, also banned by numerous U.S. states, while also obtaining $13 million in compensation from the Canadian government.65 In another infamous NAFTA case, a Mexican municipality’s refusal to grant the U.S. firm Metalclad a construction permit, which it had also denied to the contaminated facility’s previous Mexican owner (until and unless the site was cleaned up), resulted in $15.6 million in compensation being paid by Mexico.66 A British Colombian official’s rude conduct was the target of another NAFTA investor-state challenge launched by the U.S. Pope & Talbot firm. The corporation sought over half a million in compensation for the official’s rudeness, which a tribunal deemed a violation of NAFTA’s guaranteed minimum standard of treatment.67 Of the 70 investor-state cases launched under NAFTA, foreign investors have won 10 cases, governments have won 17 cases and the rest are pending or have otherwise finished.68 Recently filed cases include U.S. corporate attacks on a Canadian province’s ban on fracking and Canada’s revocation of a drug patent for a medicine that its courts found to not deliver on the promises used to obtain monopoly patent rights. Canadian financial interests, meanwhile, have threatened to challenge elements of the U.S. Dodd-Frank financial regulation.
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Public Citizen 13 (Public Citizen, nonprofit advocacy group with offices in Washington and Austin, “NAFTA’s Broken Promises 1994-2013: Outcomes of the North American Free Trade Agreement,” 2013, http://www.citizen.org/documents/NAFTAs-Broken-Promises.pdf, AL)
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NAFTA cases target health laws, environmental regulations and even the behavior of government officials. The U.S. Ethyl Corporation used NAFTA’s investor-state system in the late 1990s to reverse a Canadian environmental ban of the carcinogenic gasoline additive MMT while obtaining $13 million in compensation from the Canadian government.65 In another infamous NAFTA case, a Mexican municipality’s refusal to grant the U.S. firm Metalclad a construction permit resulted in $15.6 million in compensation being paid by Mexico Of the 70 investor-state cases launched under NAFTA, foreign investors have won 10 cases, governments have won 17 cases and the rest are pending or have otherwise finished.68 Canadian financial interests, meanwhile, have threatened to challenge elements of the U.S. Dodd-Frank financial regulation.
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Allows companies to attack health laws, avoid environmental regulations, and the behavior of government officials
| 1,556 | 114 | 824 | 234 | 15 | 119 | 0.064103 | 0.508547 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,032 |
SALTILLO, Mexico — Quitze Fernandez, a columnist for the El Guardian newspaper in this capital of Coahuila state abutting Texas, picked up the phone in his newsroom one day.¶ “Either you come or we are coming for you,” he heard.¶ Within minutes, he was in an SUV surrounded by heavily armed gangsters. One held a knife to his throat. Another jabbed a gun barrel into his ribs. They said they didn’t like a headline in the newspaper.¶ They tossed a copy in his face. He glanced down and saw it wasn’t El Guardian. Thinking quickly, he convinced the gunmen that they had mistaken his newspaper for another. They let him go, deeply shaken but alive.¶ Mexico is easily the most dangerous place in the Western Hemisphere for reporters to ply their trade. Dozens of journalists have been killed or disappeared. Nearly every month, a newspaper or a radio or TV station is firebombed, attacked with explosives or raked with gunfire, targeted by the country’s rising criminal gangs who use violence to discourage reporting the gangsters don’t like.¶ And the violence has worked. In much of Mexico, local news outlets no longer report on organized crime or corruption. Analysts call these areas “zones of silence,” where the lights have gone out on the dark activities within.¶ The success of the intimidation alarms advocates of both free speech and democracy. With no news reports on Mexico’s drug and crime problems, citizens find it difficult to stay informed about what could be life-threatening situations developing nearby. They also cannot effectively participate in the normal give and take of public discussion that fuels a democracy. The muffling has been so effective that many Mexicans don’t even realize that a near blackout of news on crime exists in swaths of the country.¶ “If journalists don’t act as a viewfinder to say who is winning the contracts, who will become police chief, if there’s no accountability, they can do whatever they want,” said Andres Solis Alvarez, a former crime reporter and author of a self-protection manual for Mexican journalists.¶ A television journalist in Veracruz, a Gulf Coast state with an authoritarian tradition, and where nine journalists have been killed in the past two years, said state officials benefit when journalists flee, taking heat off them for corruption.¶ “When a reporter’s constant criticism makes them uncomfortable, the state communications department calls and says (to one’s boss) that one is at risk, that they have intelligence that something might happen, and thereupon they invite one to leave the state,” said Hugo Gallardo, who once worked for the Televisa network.¶ Rosental Alves, a journalism professor at the University of Texas and head of its Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, calls what’s taking place unprecedented. “We have never seen anything like this in the history of Mexico in terms of attacks against journalists,” he said.¶ Just how many journalists have been murdered is the subject of dispute. The National Commission on Human Rights says that from 2000 to April 30 of this year, 84 journalists were murdered. But some of them had left journalism, or were killed for reasons unrelated to their profession. Since 2005, it says, another 19 journalists have disappeared and presumably were killed. Other watchdog groups have lower tallies.
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Johnson 13 (Tim Johnson, 5/16/13, McClatchy Foreign Staff, “In Mexico, fears for democracy as threatened journalists curtail coverage”, http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/16/191415/in-mexico-fears-for-democracy.html#storylink=cpy)
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Mexico is easily the most dangerous place in the Western Hemisphere for reporters to ply their trade. Dozens of journalists have been killed or disappeared. targeted by the country’s rising criminal gangs who use violence to discourage reporting the gangsters don’t like.¶ And the violence has worked. In much of Mexico, local news outlets no longer report on organized crime or corruption The success of the intimidation alarms advocates of both free speech and democracy. With no news reports on Mexico’s drug and crime problems, citizens find it difficult to stay informed about what could be life-threatening situations developing nearby. They also cannot effectively participate in the normal give and take of public discussion that fuels a democracy. “If journalists don’t act as a viewfinder to say there’s no accountability, they can do whatever they want,” The National Commission on Human Rights says that from 2000 to April 30 of this year, 84 journalists were murdered.
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No democracy spread in Mexico—corruption and lack of knowledge
| 3,336 | 62 | 981 | 544 | 9 | 156 | 0.016544 | 0.286765 |
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Making Democracy Work¶ In 2000, Mexicans and the international community hailed the victory of opposition candidate Vicente Fox from the National Action Party (PAN) as president. His election and inauguration were the culmination of Mexico's slow transition to democracy, ending seventy years of one-party rule. Today Mexico's three main parties—the PAN, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD)—compete in reasonably clean and transparent elections, by all accounts fulfilling the requisite of electoral democracy.¶ Yet many worry about the true depth of change within Mexico's political system. Mexico's formal and informal rules still limit transparency and accountability from the political class. The blanket prohibition of reelection—whether for president or local town council—leaves few incentives for politicians to fulfill their campaign promises. Instead, as they seek higher office, they must have the support of unelected party leaders. Informally, some of the most powerful ministries in Mexico, as well as the increasingly influential state governments within the federal system, have begun to push back against broader transparency and accountability. Denied or ignored requests under Mexico's freedom of information act are increasing, particularly in the realm of security. Continued weak democratic governance and a lack of accountability is perpetuating corruption, and persistent impunity erodes the credibility of institutions.¶ Public opinion is showing increasing disillusionment with democracy. Last year's Latinobarómetro survey of attitudes toward democracy in eighteen Latin American countries showed Mexico with the lowest level of support in the region. Only 62 percent of Mexicans agreed that “democracy was the best form of government,” compared to an average of 76 percent across the region.10¶ The possible resurgence of the old ruling party— the PRI—in recent state-level elections and within the national congress has many worried about a return to the past. Today, by most accounts, the 2012 presidential election is the PRI's to lose. A PRI win might signal a further entrenchment of corporatist-clientelist governance beholden to oligarchic interests.¶ But as the economic side has its silver lining, so too does Mexico's political system. After ten years of democracy, Mexico's politics have indeed been transformed. The days of Mexico's “imperial presidency” are gone. Government institutions— from the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) to the Federal Institute for Access to Information (IFAI)—have gained ground, opening up the workings of elections and government to a vibrant and independent media and to Mexico's citizens more broadly. Congress and the Supreme Court now matter for policymaking. In fact, the lack of significant reform in Mexico bemoaned by many reflects a common democratic occurrence—legislative gridlock. And even there, Mexico's political parties are slowly learning to work together. President Calderón has cobbled together legislative majorities to reform pensions, taxes, and the oil sector, as well as the judicial system and electoral laws.¶ Mexico has also seen a burgeoning of civil society. Years of co-optation, and at times repression, by the authoritarian PRI government decimated the ranks of independent non-governmental organizations. Today, although still weak in comparison to the rest of the region, the number, plurality, and vibrancy of civil society organizations, networks, and alliances is unprecedented. Their focus has also expanded, from social development to grassroots democracy, human rights, and, more recently, security.11 Their work has broken new ground with the passage of the country's federal freedom of information act in 2002, which represents a milestone in a campaign for transparent and accountable government begun in the 1970s, and with the 2008 judicial reforms, which, once implemented, will fundamentally transform Mexico's judicial system.¶ Last year's July state-level elections show evidence for optimism. With elections for twelve governorships up for grabs during a difficult election year, half of them changed party hands. Among these were three that had been ruled continuously by the PRI for over eighty years—representing the more authoritarian tendencies of the past. Voters in each of these states galvanized to “throw the scoundrels out,” hoping to bring in a more open and inclusive future government. In the other three, voters unhappy with the previous administration kicked out the incumbents, also a common occurrence in flourishing democracies.¶ The fight against drug trafficking, however, is exacting a political toll. Drug trafficking organizations are increasingly gaining influence over the state by alternatively funding or threatening (mostly local) political campaigns, and by infiltrating law enforcement and court systems. In the lead-up to last July's elections drug traffickers played their most visible role yet in trying to subvert the democratic process. Several campaign offices were bombed, candidates were threatened and killed, and dead bodies were hung from bridges on the morning of the polling. However, in spite of the violence, Mexico's voters turned out in large numbers to elect new governors, mayors, and state representatives. In fact, they rejected candidates with perceived links to traffickers. Despite the escalating violence, Mexico's democracy, flawed as it may be, endures.¶ It is unrealistic to expect a country to turn instantly from a closed corporatist economic system to an open competitive market, or from an authoritarian one-party state to a truly open, competitive, and inclusive democracy. At the same time, Mexico has now been on these paths for over two decades, and in a global world, time may be running out. Mexico's relatively slow economic growth and marginalization in the global economic and democratic subgroups (the BRICs and the BASIC countries, among others) has at least in part to do with its inability to get past its own legacies. Mexico today is at a crossroads—the question is which path it will take.
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O’Neil 11 (Shannon O’Neil, “Mexico: Development and Democracy at a Crossroads”, http://www.cfr.org/mexico/mexico-development-democracy-crossroads/p240890
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In 2000, Mexicans and the international community hailed the victory of opposition candidate Vicente Fox from the National Action Party (PAN) as president. His election and inauguration were the culmination of Mexico's slow transition to democracy Yet many worry about the true depth of change within Mexico's political system. Mexico's formal and informal rules still limit transparency and accountability from the political class. The blanket prohibition of reelection leaves few incentives for politicians to fulfill their campaign promises. Denied or ignored requests under Mexico's freedom of information act are increasing, particularly in the realm of security. Continued weak democratic governance and a lack of accountability is perpetuating corruption, and persistent impunity erodes the credibility of institutions.¶ Public opinion is showing increasing disillusionment with democracy. Only 62 percent of Mexicans agreed that “democracy was the best form of government,” compared to an average of 76 percent across the region.10¶ The possible resurgence of the old ruling party— the PRI has many worried about a return to the past PRI win might signal a further entrenchment of corporatist-clientelist governance beholden to oligarchic interests.¶ After ten years of democracy, Mexico's politics have indeed been transformed. Government institutions have gained ground, opening up the workings of elections and government to a vibrant and independent media and to Mexico's citizens more broadly. Mexico's political parties are slowly learning to work together. Mexico has also seen a burgeoning of civil society. although still weak in comparison to the rest of the region, the number, plurality, and vibrancy of civil society organizations, networks, and alliances is unprecedented. Their focus has also expanded, from social development to grassroots democracy, human rights, and, more recently, security reforms, which, once implemented, will fundamentally transform Mexico's judicial system.¶ Mexico's relatively slow economic growth and marginalization in the global economic and democratic subgroups has at least in part to do with its inability to get past its own legacies. Mexico today is at a crossroads—the question is which path it will take.
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Mexico democracy at a crossroads now
| 6,149 | 36 | 2,265 | 910 | 6 | 330 | 0.006593 | 0.362637 |
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While the PAN and the PRD have struggled to gain momentum since the 2006 presidential election, the PRI has risen from the ashes. Capitalizing on the PRD’s self-destructive stunts and the PAN’s failure to solve the nation’s ailing drug and financial problems, the PRI has gained enough of a following to dominate ongoing state and Congressional elections. In 2009, the PRI captured 237 of the 500 available seats in the Lower House of the Mexican Congress—a feat reflective of its strong constituency. [13] Although these victories indicate that the party has a chance of winning the 2012 presidential elections, nothing is certain. Current Mexico State Governor Enrique Peña Nieto, the projected PRI presidential candidate, will have to present a radical yet sound plan for reform in order to prevail over the predicted political actors on both the PAN and the PRD tickets (Mexican Finance Minister Ernesto Cordero and either Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard or former presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador, respectively). [14]¶ However, the actual winner of the 2012 elections will hardly make a difference. Mexico is simply a new democracy with old parties—the weakened structure of the newer PAN and PRD allows the PRI to continue to dominate the political show behind the scenes. Many fear that the re-installation of the PRI would cause a complete reversion to an authoritarian establishment. The PRD and the PAN, however, have also begun to practice clientelism as a means of survival. Until the PRD and the PAN find the strength to go out on a limb and break from the old regime’s corrupt practices, the nation will continue on the same path of regression, regardless of which party assumes power.
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Ciriaco 11 (Carol Ciriaco, COHA Research Associate, 7/18/11, “Democracy in Mexico: The Past, Present, and Future”, http://www.coha.org/democracy-in-mexico-the-past-present-and-future/)
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While the PAN and the PRD have struggled to gain momentum the PRI has risen from the ashes In 2009, the PRI captured 237 of the 500 available seats in the Lower House of the Mexican Congress—a feat reflective of its strong constituency. the actual winner of the 2012 elections will hardly make a difference. Mexico is simply a new democracy with old parties—the weakened structure of the newer PAN and PRD allows the PRI to continue to dominate the political show behind the scenes. Many fear that the re-installation of the PRI would cause a complete reversion to an authoritarian establishment. Until the PRD and the PAN find the strength to go out on a limb and break from the old regime’s corrupt practices, the nation will continue on the same path of regression, regardless of which party assumes power.
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NAFTA has no influence—Democracy will prevail anyways
| 1,718 | 54 | 809 | 280 | 7 | 141 | 0.025 | 0.503571 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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2013
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3,035 |
As the North American Free Trade Agreement nears its 10th anniversary, a study from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace concludes that the pact failed to generate substantial job growth in Mexico, hurt hundreds of thousands of subsistence farmers there and had ''minuscule'' net effects on jobs in the United States.¶ The Carnegie Endowment, an independent, Washington-based research institute, issued its report on Tuesday to coincide with new trade negotiations aimed at the adoption of a Nafta-like pact for the entire Western Hemisphere. Trade ministers from 34 countries in the Americas are gathering now in Miami.¶ The report seeks to debunk both the fears of American labor that Nafta would lure large numbers of jobs to low-wage Mexico, as well as the hopes of the trade deal's proponents that it would lead to rising wages, as well as declines in income inequality and illegal immigration.¶ Though sorting out the exact causes is complicated, trends are clear. Real wages in Mexico are lower now than they were when the agreement was adopted despite higher productivity, income inequality is greater there and immigration has continued to soar.¶ ''On balance, Nafta's been rough for rural Mexicans,'' said John J. Audley, who edited the report. ''For the country, it's probably a wash. It takes more than just trade liberalization to improve the quality of life for poor people around the world.''¶ The Carnegie findings strike a much more pessimistic note than those of a World Bank team that concluded in a draft report this year that the trade accord ''has brought significant economic and social benefits to the Mexican economy.''¶ The bank's economists argue that Mexico would have been worse off without the agreement as the country struggled to recover from a deep financial crisis in the mid-1990's and that the income gap between Mexico and the United States is smaller than it would have been otherwise.¶ Luis Servén, research manager for Latin America at the bank, said in an interview that he disagreed with the Carnegie report's contention that the trade agreement had hurt small subsistence farmers. He also said that the higher productivity Mexico had achieved in the Nafta years was ultimately the only route to higher wages there.¶ The intensity of the debate about the agreement's consequences is likely to grow with the approach of the pact's 10th anniversary in January as pro- and antiglobalization forces marshal arguments to influence negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americas and for a new bilateral trade deal between the United States and Central America.¶ Carnegie's policy experts stop short of contending that Mexico would have been better off without the agreement. ''Mexico would have been better off with a better Nafta,'' said Sandra Polaski, a senior associate at Carnegie who was director of economic research at the Nafta labor secretariat from 1996 to 1999.¶ The authors of the report say developing countries have much to learn from Mexico's mistakes in the Nafta deal.¶ Trade negotiators for Central and South American countries, they said, should bargain for more gradual tariff reductions on corn, rice and beans -- the staples of subsistence farming -- to give peasants time to adjust to tough competition from large, highly efficient and heavily subsidized American farmers.¶ Carnegie's researchers also say developing countries should push international donors and rich countries to finance transitional assistance for the retraining of workers and farmers displaced by global competition.¶ Developing countries should also seek greater leeway to promote the use of domestic suppliers in manufacturing over imported components -- a step that would increase job creation, the authors say.
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New York Times 3 (Celia W. Dugger, “Report Finds Few Benefits for Mexico in NAFTA,” 11/19/2003, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/19/world/report-finds-few-benefits-for-mexico-in-nafta.html, AC)
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a study from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace concludes that the pact failed to generate substantial job growth in Mexico, hurt hundreds of thousands of subsistence farmers there and had ''minuscule'' net effects on jobs in the United States Real wages in Mexico are lower now than they were when the agreement was adopted income inequality is greater there and immigration has continued to soar. Nafta's been rough for rural Mexicans ''Mexico would have been better off with a better Nafta report say developing countries have much to learn from Mexico's mistakes in the Nafta deal
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NAFTA hurts jobs and causes income inequality
| 3,760 | 45 | 596 | 596 | 7 | 97 | 0.011745 | 0.162752 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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3,036 |
With the Republicans and the Obama administration attempting to rush headlong into a new trade agreement with Korea, and possibly also with Panama and Colombia as well, it is incumbent on Americans to apply a bit of empiricism. How have our past trade agreements worked at all, how's the grand-daddy of them all, NAFTA, doing?¶ Unfortunately, NAFTA is a veritable case study in failure.¶ This is all the more damning because this treaty was created, and is administered, by the very Washington elite that is loudest in proclaiming free trade's virtues. So there is no room for excuses about incompetent implementation, the standard alibi for free trade's failures in the developing world. So if free trade was going to work anywhere, it should have been here.¶ Instead, what happened? NAFTA was sold as a policy that would reduce America's trade deficit. But our trade balance actually worsened against both Canada and Mexico.¶ For the four years prior to NAFTA's implementation in 1994, America's annual deficit with Canada averaged a modest $8.1 billion. Twelve years later, it was up to $71 billion.¶ Our trade with Mexico showed a $1.6 billion surplus in 1993 but by 2010, our deficit had reached $61.6 billion.¶ Eccentric billionaire and 1992 presidential candidate H. Ross Perot was roundly mocked for predicting a "giant sucking sound" of jobs going to Mexico if NAFTA passed. But he has been vindicated. The Department of Labor has estimated that NAFTA cost America 525,000 jobs between 1994 and 2002. According to the more aggressive Economic Policy Institute:¶ NAFTA has eliminated some 766,000 job opportunities--primarily for non-college-educated workers in manufacturing. Contrary to what the American promoters of NAFTA promised U.S. workers, the agreement did not result in an increased trade surplus with Mexico, but the reverse. As manufacturing jobs disappeared, workers were down-scaled to lower-paying, less-secure services jobs. Within manufacturing, the threat of employers to move production to Mexico proved a powerful weapon for undercutting workers' bargaining power.¶ The idea of Mexico as a vast export market for American products is a sad joke; Mexicans are simply too poor. In the 1997 words of Business Mexico, a pro-NAFTA publication of the American Chamber of Commerce of Mexico:¶ The reality is that only between 10 and 20 percent of the population are really considered consumers. The extreme unequal distribution of wealth has created a distorted market, the economy is hamstrung by a work force with a poor level of education, and a sizable chunk of the gross domestic product in devoted to exports rather than production for home consumption.¶ According to official figures that year, fewer than 18 million Mexicans made more than 5,000 pesos a month. And even that was only about $625: roughly half the U.S. poverty line for a family of four. This has not improved much since, so, as Paul Krugman has pointed out, "Mexico's economy is so small--its GDP is less than four percent that of the United States--that for the foreseeable future it will be neither a major supplier nor a major market."¶ But if NAFTA wasn't a plausible economic bonanza for the U.S. and America's establishment knew it, then what was going on? Krugman again supplies an answer, writing in Foreign Affairs that, "For the United States, NAFTA is essentially a foreign policy rather than an economic issue." The real agenda was to keep people like President Carlos Salinas, friendly with powerful interests in the U.S., in power in Mexico City.¶ Bottom line? Free trade was pushed not because of any sincerely anticipated economic benefits, but to serve an extraneous foreign policy agenda. To his credit, Krugman later admitted the utter chicanery of it all, writing in The New Democrat in 1996 that:¶ The agreement was sold under false pretences. Over the protests of most economists, the Clinton Administration chose to promote NAFTA as a jobs-creation program. Based on little more than guesswork, a few economists argued that NAFTA would boost our trade surplus with Mexico, and thus produce a net gain in jobs. With utterly spurious precision, the administration settled on a figure of 200,000 jobs created--and this became the core of the NAFTA sales pitch.¶ NAFTA was sold in Mexico as Mexico's ticket to the big time. Mexicans were told they were choosing between gradually converging with America's advanced economy and regressing to the status of a backwater like neighboring Guatemala.¶ What actually happened? In reality, the income gap between the United States and Mexico grew (by over 10 percent) in the first decade of the agreement. This doesn't mean America boomed; we didn't. But Mexico slumped terribly.¶ In NAFTA's first decade, the Mexican economy averaged 1.8 percent real growth per capita. By contrast, under the protectionist economic policies of 1948-73, Mexico had averaged 3.2 percent growth.¶ Because Mexico's labor force grows by a million people a year, job creation must get ahead of this curve in order to raise wages; this is simply not happening. Mexican workers can often be hired for less than the taxes on American workers; the average maquiladora wage is $1.82/hr. The maquiladora sector is deliberately isolated from the rest of the Mexican economy and contributes little to it. Workers' rights, wages, and benefits are deliberately suppressed. Environmental laws are frequently just ignored.¶ Mexican agriculture hasn't benefited either: NAFTA turned Mexico from a food exporter to a food importer overnight and over a million farm jobs were wiped out by cheap American food exports, massively subsidized by our various farm programs.¶ Promoters of NAFTA have tried to cover up its problems by using inappropriate yardsticks of success. For example, they have claimed that the expansion of total trade among the three nations vindicates the pact. But this expansion has been due to a growing American deficit. Because a growing deficit means, by definition, that our imports have been growing faster than our exports, there is no way that economic growth per se will ever solve the problem.¶ Congress was right to reject NAFTA initially, which never enjoyed sincere majority support in either the House or the Senate and was bought with sheer patronage by Bill Clinton.¶ To be fair, NAFTA is not the only thing that has been wrong with the Mexican economy in recent decades. But NAFTA was the capstone to a series of dubious free-market economic experiments carried out there since the early 1980s. Between 1990 and 1999, Mexican manufacturing wages fell 21 percent.¶ It gets worse. Despite the fact that, compared to the U.S., Mexico is a cheap-labor economy, there are plenty of nations with even lower average wages. For example, Mexico is now losing manufacturing jobs to China in such areas as computer parts, electrical components, toys, textiles, sporting goods, and shoes: 200,000 in the first two years of the millennium alone.¶ Mexico's trade deficit against the rest of the world has actually worsened since NAFTA was signed. In the words of liberal commentator William Greider, "The Mexican maquiladora cities thought they were going to become the next South Korea, but instead they may be the next Detroit."¶ NAFTA is not America's only free trade agreement, of course. But our other agreements tell similar tales. We have signed 11 since 2000: with Australia, Bahrain, Chile, Colombia, Jordan, Korea, Oman, Morocco, Singapore, Panama, and Peru. (El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic were lumped together in the Central America Free Trade Agreement or CAFTA.) Every agreement but one has coincided with greater American deficits. The only exception is Singapore, where our existing surplus increased somewhat. But Singapore is tiny, a mere city-state.¶ Nevertheless, our government pushes for more. As of 2011, country agreements with Colombia, South Korea, Oman and Panama were pending ratification, and the U.S. was in stalled negotiations with Malaysia, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates. Next on the list are reportedly Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.¶ In December 2009, the Obama administration announced its intention to eventually join the existing Trans-Pacific Partnership and elevate it into a full-blown free trade area comprising the U.S. plus Singapore, Chile, New Zealand, Brunei, Australia, Peru, and Vietnam. In December 2010, the administration reached a slightly-improved deal with South Korea and announced it would push for Congressional ratification.¶ When will we ever learn?
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Fletcher 11 (Ian, Senior Economist of the Coalition for a Prosperous America and research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, “More Free Trade Agreements? When NAFTA Failed?” Huffington Post The Blog, 03/11/2011, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ian-fletcher/more-free-trade-agreement_b_838196.html, AC)
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NAFTA is a veritable case study in failure our trade balance actually worsened against Mexico Our trade with Mexico showed a $1.6 billion surplus in 1993 but by 2010, our deficit had reached $61.6 billion Department of Labor has estimated that NAFTA cost America 525,000 jobs between 1994 and 2002 NAFTA has eliminated some 766,000 job opportunities the agreement did not result in an increased trade surplus with Mexico, but the reverse only between 10 and 20 percent of the population are really considered consumers. The extreme unequal distribution of wealth has created a distorted market, the economy is hamstrung by a work force with a poor level of education, and a sizable chunk of the gross domestic product in devoted to exports rather than production for home consumption The real agenda was to keep people like Salinas friendly with powerful interests in the U.S NAFTA turned Mexico to a food importer overnight and over a million farm jobs were wiped out by cheap American food exports expansion of total trade among the three nations has been due to a growing American deficit a growing deficit means our imports have been growing faster than our exports, there is no way that economic growth will ever solve the problem
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NAFTA eliminates job opportunities and undermines growth
| 8,621 | 57 | 1,235 | 1,370 | 7 | 208 | 0.005109 | 0.151825 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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3,037 |
NAFTA’s impact in the United States, however, has been often obscured by the “boom-and-bust” cycle that drove domestic consumption, investment, and speculation in the mid- and late 1990s. Between 1994 (when NAFTA was implemented) and 2000, total employment rose rapidly in the United States, causing overall unemployment to fall to record low levels. But unemployment began to rise early in 2001, and 2.4 million jobs were lost in the domestic economy between March 2001 and October 2003 (BLS 2003). These job losses have been primarily concentrated in the manufacturing sector, which has experienced a total decline of 2.4 million jobs since March 2001. As job growth has dried up in the economy, the underlying problems caused by U.S. trade deficits have become much more apparent, especially in manufacturing.
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Scott 3 (Robert E., international economist at the Economic Policy Institute, “The High Price of ‘Free Trade’: NAFTA’s Failure Has Cost The United States Jobs Across The Nation,” 11/17/2003, http://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp147/, RLA)
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Between 1994 (when NAFTA was implemented) and 2000, total employment rose rapidly in the United States But unemployment began to rise 2.4 million jobs were lost in the domestic economy between March 2001 and October 2003 These job losses have been concentrated in the manufacturing sector, underlying problems caused by U.S. trade deficits have become apparent
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NAFTA devastates the manufacturing sector
| 812 | 41 | 360 | 128 | 5 | 56 | 0.039063 | 0.4375 |
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Research by Monge-Naranjo (2002) shows that the passage of NAFTA immediately translated into significant increases in FDI into Mexico, in large part because NAFTA made Mexico an attractive export platform for labor-intensive manufacturing. A recent report from the World Bank reaches a similar conclusion: “In particular, a conservative estimate of NAFTA’s influence would suggest that it is responsible for increasing FDI in Mexico by about 70%” (Cuevas, Messmacher, and Werner 2002).¶ NAFTA has resulted in a huge surge of foreign direct investment into Canada and Mexico, as shown in Figure 2. This figure measures changes in the stock of FDI over 10-year periods, before and after NAFTA took effect (IMF 2003).4 Between 1983 and 1992, before NAFTA, the stock of FDI in Mexico increased by $23 billion U.S. dollars. In the decade after NAFTA, between 1993 and 2002, the stock of FDI increased $124 billion, an increase of 435% over the decade before NAFTA. In Canada, the story is much the same. Between 1983 and 1992, before NAFTA, the stock of FDI in Canada increased by $44 billion U.S. dollars. In the decade after NAFTA, between 1993 and 2002, the stock of FDI increased $202 billion, an increase of 354% over the decade before NAFTA.¶ Inflows of FDI, along with bank loans and other types of foreign financing, have funded the construction of thousands of Mexican and Canadian factories that produce goods for export to the United States. Canada and Mexico have absorbed $326 billion in FDI from all sources since 1993. One result is that the United States absorbed 84% of Mexico’s total exports in 2002, up from 77% in 1993.5 The growth of U.S. imports from these factories has contributed substantially to the growing U.S. trade deficit and the related job losses. The growth of foreign production capacity in these factories has played a major role in the rapid growth in exports to the United States.¶
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Scott 3 (Robert E., international economist at the Economic Policy Institute, “The High Price of ‘Free Trade’: NAFTA’s Failure Has Cost The United States Jobs Across The Nation,” 11/17/2003, http://www.epi.org/publication/briefingpapers_bp147/, RLA)
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passage of NAFTA immediately translated into significant increases in FDI into Mexico NAFTA made Mexico an attractive export platform for labor-intensive manufacturing. Inflows of FDI, have funded the construction of thousands of Mexican and Canadian factories that produce goods for export to the United States Canada and Mexico have absorbed $326 billion in FDI from all sources since 1993. growth of U.S. imports from these factories has contributed substantially to the growing U.S. trade deficit and the related job losses.
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NAFTA increases the trade deficit, resulting in unemployment
| 1,916 | 61 | 530 | 318 | 8 | 80 | 0.025157 | 0.251572 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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From the current U.S. government’s perspective, the U.S. economy has been a big ¶ winner under NAFTA. U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab says U.S. merchandise ¶ exports to Canadian and Mexico grew more rapidly – 157% – than U.S. exports to the rest of ¶ the world, which was 108%.¶ About US$2.4 billion worth of goods crosses the northern and southern borders ¶ each day. As a result, Canada and Mexico are the U.S.’s first and second largest export ¶ markets, although China is soon expected to be the U.S.'s largest trading partner. Initial ¶ worries about NAFTA, from the U.S. perspective, had little to do with trade with Canada. ¶ Instead, former presidential candidate Ross Perot, characterized then widespread concerns ¶ about America job losses to Mexico as “that giant sucking sound.¶ That does not appear to have happened.¶ Instead, Schwab says that U.S. economic growth during the past 14 years of NAFTA ¶ has been strong: U.S. employment rose 22% to 137.2 million in December 2006 from 112.2 ¶ million in December 1993. The average unemployment rate was 5.1% between 1994 and ¶ 2006, compared with 7.1% between 1981 and 1993.¶ U.S. manufacturing output rose by 63% between 1993 and 2006, nearly double the ¶ 37% seen between 1980 and 1993. Wages in the same sector increased 1.6% between ¶ 1993 and 2006 compared with 0.9% between 1980 and 1993.¶ Excluding housing, U.S. business investment has risen by 107% since 1993, ¶ compared with 45% between 1980 and 1993The U.S. Trade Representative also insists that NAFTA’s investment provisions such ¶ as Chapter 11 do not prevent the U.S. – or any NAFTA country – from adopting or ¶ maintaining non-discriminatory laws or regulations that protect the environment, worker ¶ rights, health and safety or other public interest. ¶ Schwab notes that to date the U.S. has not lost a challenge in cases decided under ¶ NAFTA, nor has it paid a penny in damages to resolve any investment dispute. Even if the ¶ U.S. were to lose a case, it could be directed to pay compensation but it could not be ¶ required to change the laws or regulations at issue.
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Canadian- American Business Council 8- The Premier Voice of the Canadian American Business Community (“The economic benefits of NAFTA”, April 2008, http://canambusco.org/resources/TheEconomicBenefitsofNAFTA.pdf)//RT
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the U.S. economy has been a big ¶ winner under NAFTA U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab says U.S. merchandise ¶ exports to Canadian and Mexico grew more rapidly – 157% – than U.S. exports to the rest of ¶ the world, which was 108% About US$2.4 billion worth of goods crosses the northern and southern borders ¶ each day Canada and Mexico are the U.S.’s first and second largest export ¶ markets U.S. economic growth during the past 14 years of NAFTA ¶ has been strong: U.S. employment rose 22% to 137.2 million in December 2006 from 112.2 ¶ million in December 1993. The average unemployment rate was 5.1% between 1994 and ¶ 2006, compared with 7.1% between 1981 and 1993.¶ U.S. manufacturing output rose by 63% between 1993 and 2006, nearly double the ¶ 37% seen between 1980 and 1993. 1993The U.S. Trade Representative also insists that NAFTA’s investment provisions such ¶ as Chapter 11 do not prevent the U.S. – or any NAFTA country – from adopting or ¶ maintaining non-discriminatory laws or regulations that protect the environment, worker ¶ rights, health and safety or other public interest , it could be directed to pay compensation but it could not be ¶ required to change the laws or regulations at issue.
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NAFTA is key to the US economy
| 2,106 | 31 | 1,220 | 363 | 7 | 213 | 0.019284 | 0.586777 |
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Michigan (7-week)
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The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been part of the American economic success story of the 1990's and is an important part of America’s economic future.¶ In particular, America’s farmers have benefitted greatly from NAFTA, because it’s meant more export opportunities. Since NAFTA was approved in 1993, United States agricultural exports to Mexico have nearly doubled. Mexico now imports $6.5 billion of United States agricultural products making it our third largest agricultural market. United States exports of agricultural products to Canada since implementation of NAFTA have increased 44 percent. Canada is the second largest market for United States agricultural exports, with Canadians purchasing $7.6 billion worth of American products last year. Canada and Mexico purchased over 25 percent of the United States agricultural product exported in 2000. American farmers can’t afford to lose access to the NAFTA markets.¶ Current United States Department of Agriculture projections anticipate an improvement in global agricultural demand and trade over the next several years, and United States exports are projected to rise. Over the longer term, economic growth, especially in developing countries, is projected to strengthen, providing a solid foundation for future expansion in global agricultural demand and trade.¶ It’s important to remember that United States agricultural imports benefit consumers with lower prices and expanded choices.
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USTR 1 (Office of the United States Trade Representative, Executive Office of the President, “NAFTA Good for Farmers, Good for America”, http://www.ustr.gov/about-us/press-office/fact-sheets/archives/2001/june/nafta-good-farmers-good-america)
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NAFTA) has been part of the American economic success story of the 1990's and is an important part of America’s economic future.¶ America’s farmers have benefitted greatly from NAFTA, because it’s meant more export opportunities. Since NAFTA was approved in 1993, United States agricultural exports to Mexico have nearly doubled. Mexico now imports $6.5 billion making it our third largest agricultural market. exports of agricultural products to Canada have increased 44 percent. Canada is the second largest market for United States agricultural exports purchasing $7.6 billion American farmers can’t afford to lose access to the NAFTA markets.¶ United States exports are projected to rise. Over the longer term, economic growth, especially in developing countries, is projected to strengthen, providing a solid foundation for future expansion in global agricultural demand and trade.¶ It’s important to remember that United States agricultural imports benefit consumers with lower prices and expanded choices.
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NAFTA key to US economy—farming industry
| 1,468 | 40 | 1,012 | 213 | 6 | 148 | 0.028169 | 0.694836 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,041 |
As a Mexican national who has been doing business in Mexico and the U.S. since 1988, who launched a publishing business in 1992, who moved from Mexico to San Antonio in 2009, and who has continued doing business in both countries, I believe that North America is better off with NAFTA than without it.¶ The North American Free Trade Agreement united Canada, Mexico and the U.S. as a powerful trading bloc. The agreement established trade rules and regulations that provide a business-friendly environment so that the three nations can trade products and services more easily among each other by eliminating tariffs and trade barriers.¶ Since its implementation in the early '90s, NAFTA has stimulated economic growth and sustained the economies of the three-nation region. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, in 2011 exports grew more than 45 percent and were strongest with the U.S. NAFTA partners, Canada and Mexico. U.S. trade with Mexico increased substantially in 2011, with exports to Mexico increasing by 21.6 percent between 2010 and 2011.¶ Despite economic turbulence, I have seen many business success stories unfold thanks to NAFTA. Corona, for example, is a Mexican beer that was introduced in the U.S. in 1981. After NAFTA was implemented, the trading process became easier and the brand's marketing efforts helped it become the No. 1 import beer in the U.S. The beer that originated in Mexico crossed borders when the brand and its parent company were acquired by Anheuser-Busch earlier this year. But beer isn't the only Mexican product that has benefited from NAFTA. In San Antonio's key grocery store chain, H.E.B, one can buy many products from my homeland because H.E.B. operates in Mexico and the U.S., thanks to NAFTA.¶ Additionally, NAFTA has made it easier to buy American products in Mexico. I can shop at H.E.B. and other stores in Mexico and buy Procter & Gamble and other American-made products that we could not buy in Mexico before NAFTA. Before NAFTA, the taxes imposed on American products in Mexico made them unaffordable. In fact, people called "contrabandistas" would buy American products, smuggle them into Mexico, and sell them to Mexicans at three times the American price. Thanks to NAFTA, the process of smuggling American products into Mexico is less common because NAFTA eliminated tariffs, making American-made products more competitively priced in Mexico.¶ Mexico is also the second largest destination for U.S. exports and the third largest source of imports; 6 million American jobs depend on trade with Mexico. And I have seen the business landscape in Mexico become Americanized. In most of Mexico's major cities, today one will see the familiar brands of American stores and restaurants that have grown due to expansion in Mexico. Familiar brands include McDonalds, Burger King, Applebee's and Walmart, to name a few.¶ Mary Kay is a testament to the beauty of NAFTA. In 2007, Mary Kay, one of the largest direct-selling skin care and color cosmetic companies in the world, opened a new headquarters and distribution center in the northern Mexico region. Mary Kay's $20 million investment in the two facilities reflects its commitment to the country. The new distribution center focuses on the needs of some 200,000 Mary Kay independent beauty consultants throughout Mexico. It is estimated that 75 million units will be shipped from the distribution center annually, increasing Mary Kay's business capacity by 50 percent.¶ Caterpillar also paved its way into Mexico and Canada, and is a huge supporter of NAFTA. The chairman and CEO attributes much of the company's economic success to the benefits of free trade, and says that it is an excellent case study of how American workers can compete and win in the international marketplace. Because the company exports billions of dollars from products made in U.S. factories, many of Catepillar's U.S. employees depend on international trade for their livelihoods. That is why the company is a strong advocate for international trade and NAFTA.¶ The company stories I mentioned are just a few examples, but there are hundreds more, and we, as Mexican nationals who are living in the U.S. and successfully operating businesses on an international level, are strong proponents for developing a NAFTA future that will generate smarter, more innovative ways to grow and sustain the economies of Canada, Mexico and the U.S.
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Bravo 12 (Eduard Bravo, Writer for Houston Chronicle, “NAFTA has been good for all of North America”, http://www.chron.com/opinion/outlook/article/NAFTA-has-been-good-for-all-of-North-America-4038237.php)
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The North American Free Trade Agreement united Canada, Mexico and the U.S. as a powerful trading bloc NAFTA has stimulated economic growth and sustained the economies of the three-nation region. in 2011 exports grew more than 45 percent and were strongest with the U.S. NAFTA partners, Canada and Mexico. U.S. trade with Mexico increased substantially in 2011, with exports to Mexico increasing by 21.6 percent between 2010 and 2011 many business success stories unfold thanks to NAFTA. Corona, After NAFTA was implemented, the trading proces helped it become the No. 1 import beer in the U.S. T NAFTA has made it easier to buy American products in Mexico. Before NAFTA, the taxes imposed on American products in Mexico made them unaffordable. Thanks to NAFTA, the process of smuggling American products into Mexico is less common because NAFTA eliminated tariffs, making American-made products more competitively priced in Mexico.¶ Mexico is also the second largest destination for U.S. exports and the third largest source of imports; 6 million American jobs depend on trade with Mexico. Mary Kay is a testament to the beauty of NAFTA. Mary Kay's $20 million investment facilities reflects its commitment to the country. The new distribution center focuses on the needs of some 200,000 Mary Kay independent beauty consultants throughout Mexico Caterpillar attributes much of the company's economic success to the benefits of free trade, and says that it is an excellent case study of how American workers can compete and win in the international marketplace. many of Catepillar's U.S. employees depend on international trade for their livelihoods.
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NAFTA key to growth of US businesses
| 4,423 | 36 | 1,649 | 714 | 7 | 260 | 0.009804 | 0.364146 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,042 |
The agreement established trade rules and regulations that provide a business friendly environment so that the three nations can trade products and services more easily among each other by eliminating tariffs and trade barriers. Since its implementation in the early '90s, NAFTA has stimulated economic growth and sustained the economies of the three-nation region. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, in 2011, exports grew over 45 percent. Despite economic turbulence, I have seen many business success stories unfold thanks to NAFTA. Corona, for example, is a Mexican beer that was introduced in the U.S. in 1981. After NAFTA was implemented, the trading process became easier and the brand's marketing efforts helped it become the number one import beer in the U.S. NAFTA has made it easier to buy American products in Mexico. I can shop at HEB and other stores in Mexico and buy Procter & Gamble and other American-made products that we could not buy in Mexico before NAFTA. When I lived in Mexico and wanted American products before NAFTA, the taxes imposed on American products made them unaffordable. Mexico is also the second- largest destination for U.S. exports and the third-largest source of imports; 6 million American jobs depend on trade with Mexico. And I have seen the business landscape in Mexico become Americanized. In most of Mexico's major cities, today one will see the familiar brands of American stores and restaurants that have grown due to expansion in Mexico. Familiar brands include McDonalds, Burger King, Applebee's and Walmart, to name a few. Mary Kay is a testament to the beauty of NAFTA. In 2007, Mary Kay, one of the largest direct-selling skin care and color cosmetic companies in the world, opened a new headquarters and distribution center in the Northern Mexico region. Caterpillar also paved its way to Mexico and Canada, and is a huge supporter of NAFTA. The chairman and CEO attributes much of the company's economic success to the benefits of free trade, and says that the company is an excellent case study of how American workers can compete and win in the international marketplace. Because the company exports billions of dollars of its products made in U.S. factories, many of Catepillar's U.S. employees depend on international trade for their livelihoods. That is why the company is a strong advocate for international trade and NAFTA. The company stories I mentioned are just a few examples, but there are hundreds more, and we, as Mexican nationals who are living in the U.S. and successfully operating businesses on an international level, are strong proponents for developing a NAFTA future that will generate smarter, more innovative ways to grow and sustain the economies of Canada, Mexico and the U.S. In the future, the Asociacicn de Empresarios Mexicanos will hold more frequent summits to continue the international dialogue on how to take NAFTA to a higher level that will benefit the entire world.
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Bravo ’12 (Eduardo, Publisher at The Society Diaries Chairman at AEM "Asociacion Empresarios Mexicanos" Publisher at Empresarios AEM President & CEO at M.M.G.COMMUNICATIONS, INC. Presidente y Director General at Suplementos Corporativos, “NAFTA has taken North American trade to a higher level”, December 9th issue of El Paso times- columnist section //LEXIS //NS)
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. Since its implementation in the early '90s, NAFTA has stimulated economic growth and sustained the economies of the three-nation region. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, in 2011, exports grew over 45 percent the U.S. NAFTA has made it easier to buy American products in Mexico . Mexico is also the second- largest destination for U.S. exports and the third-largest source of imports; 6 million American jobs depend on trade with Mexico. , as Mexican nationals who are living in the U.S. and successfully operating businesses on an international level, are strong proponents for developing a NAFTA future that will generate smarter, more innovative ways to grow and sustain the economies of Canada, Mexico and the U.S. In the future, the Asociacicn de Empresarios Mexicanos will hold more frequent summits to continue the international dialogue on how to take NAFTA to a higher level that will benefit the entire world.
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NAFTA key to the US economy
| 2,970 | 28 | 933 | 485 | 6 | 152 | 0.012371 | 0.313402 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,043 |
"The bottom line is that NAFTA has supported millions of good jobs, raised standards of living, and enhanced the competitiveness of North American industry in a rapidly changing global economy," said Donohue. "NAFTA's tremendous benefits for American workers, farmers, and companies are hidden in plain sight. Today more than ever, we need the millions of jobs and the huge boost to our competitiveness that NAFTA has provided. However, the United States can't rest on its laurels. Elected officials and business leaders in Canada, Mexico, and the United States must work together to build on this foundation in the years ahead." "North America is experiencing a renaissance in energy production of epic proportions," he added. "The potential in the United States alone is tremendous. Unconventional oil and natural gas development will attract manufacturing back to the United States, boost exports, expand our tax base and revenues, and reduce our dependence on unfriendly or risky suppliers. When you add up the potential of all three countries, our energy resources are truly staggering. We must do everything in our power to seize the extraordinary energy opportunity in North America." In conjunction with Donohue's participation in the NAFTA20 Summit, the Chamber released a new report entitled NAFTA Triumphant: Assessing Two Decades of Gains in Trade, Growth, and Jobs.
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U.S. Chamber of Commerce ’12 (Targeted News Service November 16, LEXIS //NS)
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The bottom line is that NAFTA has supported millions of good jobs, raised standards of living, and enhanced the competitiveness of North American industry in a rapidly changing global economy NAFTA's tremendous benefits for American workers, farmers, and companies are hidden in plain sight. Today more than ever, we need the millions of jobs and the huge boost to our competitiveness that NAFTA has provided . Elected officials and business leaders in Canada, Mexico, and the United States must work together to build on this foundation in the years ahead." "North America is experiencing a renaissance in energy production of epic proportions "The potential in the United States alone is tremendous. Unconventional oil and natural gas development will attract manufacturing back to the United States, boost exports, expand our tax base and revenues, and reduce our dependence on unfriendly or risky suppliers. . We must do everything in our power to seize the extraordinary energy opportunity in North America.
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NAFTA key to the economy of all three countries
| 1,378 | 47 | 1,012 | 214 | 9 | 159 | 0.042056 | 0.742991 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,044 |
The United States -- preeminent but not hegemonic -- cannot maintain its global leadership without the cooperation of like-minded nations that share its interests and values. In fact, in the coming years, American preeminence will likely remain stable only in regions where the United States has signed agreements with countries that have congenial economic and sociopolitical systems. Fortunately, creating agreements based on the promotion of regional economic growth, integration into the world economy, and the consolidation of democracy is feasible under certain circumstances. Witness the successive expansions of the European integration project (now the European Union), which incorporated Italy in the 1950s, Spain in the 1970s, and then Greece, Ireland, and Portugal in the 1980s. Now a similar opportunity for integration exists in the Southern Cone of South America. A core group of countries -- Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay -- have made great strides in recent years and are poised, despite their short-term economic problems, to make steady political and economic gains over the next decade. The right incentives are critical, however, to ensure that these nations become fully democratic, market-oriented allies of the United States. To this end, the best incentive the United States can provide is an expansion of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to the Southern Cone, making these South American nations members of the pact alongside the United States, Canada, and Mexico. But economic integration will not succeed without a compelling political rationale as well: namely, the promotion of democracy and regional security that could follow the creation of a "super NAFTA." Such a comprehensive treaty system would offer great advantages to all its participants, helping to stabilize and enrich the Americas, and would further the process of hemispheric integration.
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Balze, 1 - Director of the Argentine Council on Foreign Relations and Professor of International Economics at the Foreign Service School and at the Advanced School of the Ministry of Defense in Buenos Aires. His recent books include Mercosur: Entre la Retorica y el Realismo. (Felipe A. M. de la “Finding Allies in the Back Yard;NAFTA and the Southern Cone Foreign Affairs July, 2001 / August, 2001” Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. Foreign Affairs, Lexis)//ahayes
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The U S cannot maintain its global leadership without the cooperation of like-minded nations that share its interests and values American preeminence will likely remain stable only in regions where the United States has signed agreements with countries that have congenial economic and sociopolitical systems. Fortunately, creating agreements based on the promotion of regional economic growth, integration into the world economy, and the consolidation of democracy is feasible under certain circumstances. To this end, the best incentive is NAFTA , the promotion of democracy and regional security that could follow the creation NAFTA offer great advantages to all its participants, helping to stabilize and enrich the Americas, and would further the process of hemispheric integration.
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NAFTA is key to heg – facilitates cooperation and integration
| 1,906 | 61 | 787 | 287 | 10 | 115 | 0.034843 | 0.400697 |
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A core premise of deep engagement is that it prevents the emergence of a far more dangerous global security environment. For one thing, as noted above, the United States’ overseas presence gives it the leverage to restrain partners from taking provocative action. Perhaps more important, its core alliance commitments also deter states with aspirations to regional hegemony from contemplating expansion and make its partners more secure, reducing their incentive to adopt solutions to their security problems that threaten others and thus stoke security dilemmas. The contention that engaged U.S. power dampens the baleful effects of anarchy is consistent with influential variants of realist theory. Indeed, arguably the scariest portrayal of the war-prone world that would emerge absent the “American Pacifier” is provided in the works of John Mearsheimer, who forecasts dangerous multipolar regions replete with security competition, arms races, nuclear proliferation and associated preventive wartemptations, regional rivalries, and even runs at regional hegemony and full-scale great power war. 72 How do retrenchment advocates, the bulk of whom are realists, discount this benefit? Their arguments are complicated, but two capture most of the variation: (1) U.S. security guarantees are not necessary to prevent dangerous rivalries and conflict in Eurasia; or (2) prevention of rivalry and conflict in Eurasia is not a U.S. interest. Each response is connected to a different theory or set of theories, which makes sense given that the whole debate hinges on a complex future counterfactual (what would happen to Eurasia’s security setting if the United States truly disengaged?). Although a certain answer is impossible, each of these responses is nonetheless a weaker argument for retrenchment than advocates acknowledge. The first response flows from defensive realism as well as other international relations theories that discount the conflict-generating potential of anarchy under contemporary conditions. 73 Defensive realists maintain that the high expected costs of territorial conquest, defense dominance, and an array of policies and practices that can be used credibly to signal benign intent, mean that Eurasia’s major states could manage regional multipolarity peacefully without theAmerican pacifier. Retrenchment would be a bet on this scholarship, particularly in regions where the kinds of stabilizers that nonrealist theories point to—such as democratic governance or dense institutional linkages—are either absent or weakly present. There are three other major bodies of scholarship, however, that might give decisionmakers pause before making this bet. First is regional expertise. Needless to say, there is no consensus on the net security effects of U.S. withdrawal. Regarding each region, there are optimists and pessimists. Few experts expect a return of intense great power competition in a post-American Europe, but many doubt European governments will pay the political costs of increased EU defense cooperation and the budgetary costs of increasing military outlays. 74 The result might be a Europe that is incapable of securing itself from various threats that could be destabilizing within the region and beyond (e.g., a regional conflict akin to the 1990s Balkan wars), lacks capacity for global security missions in which U.S. leaders might want European participation, and is vulnerable to the influence of outside rising powers. What about the other parts of Eurasia where the United States has a substantial military presence? Regarding the Middle East, the balance begins toswing toward pessimists concerned that states currently backed by Washington— notably Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia—might take actions upon U.S. retrenchment that would intensify security dilemmas. And concerning East Asia, pessimismregarding the region’s prospects without the American pacifier is pronounced. Arguably the principal concern expressed by area experts is that Japan and South Korea are likely to obtain a nuclear capacity and increase their military commitments, which could stoke a destabilizing reaction from China. It is notable that during the Cold War, both South Korea and Taiwan moved to obtain a nuclear weapons capacity and were only constrained from doing so by astill-engaged United States. 75 The second body of scholarship casting doubt on the bet on defensive realism’s sanguine portrayal is all of the research that undermines its conception of state preferences. Defensive realism’s optimism about what would happen if the United States retrenched is very much dependent on itsparticular—and highly restrictive—assumption about state preferences; once we relax this assumption, then much of its basis for optimism vanishes. Specifically, the prediction of post-American tranquility throughout Eurasia rests on the assumption that security is the only relevant state preference, with security defined narrowly in terms of protection from violent external attacks on the homeland. Under that assumption, the security problem is largely solved as soon as offense and defense are clearly distinguishable, and offense is extremely expensive relative to defense. Burgeoning research across the social and other sciences, however,undermines that core assumption: states have preferences not only for security but also for prestige, status, and other aims, and theyengage in trade-offs among the various objectives. 76 In addition, they define security not just in terms of territorial protection but in view of many and varied milieu goals. It follows that even states that are relatively secure may nevertheless engage in highly competitive behavior. Empirical studies show that this is indeed sometimes the case. 77 In sum, a bet on a benign postretrenchment Eurasia is a bet that leaders of major countries will never allow these nonsecurity preferences to influence their strategic choices. To the degree that these bodies of scholarly knowledge have predictive leverage, U.S. retrenchment would result in a significant deterioration in the security environment in at least some of the world’s key regions. We have already mentioned the third, even more alarming body of scholarship. Offensive realism predicts thatthe withdrawal of the American pacifier will yield either a competitive regional multipolarity complete with associated insecurity, arms racing, crisis instability, nuclear proliferation, and the like, or bids for regional hegemony, which may be beyond the capacity of local great powers to contain (and which in any case would generate intensely competitive behavior, possibly including regional great power war).
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Brooks et al 13 [Stephen G. Brooks is Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College.G. John Ikenberry is the Albert G. Milbank Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University in the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He is also a Global Eminence Scholar at Kyung Hee University.William C. Wohlforth is the Daniel Webster Professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College. “Don't Come Home, America: The Case against Retrenchment”, Winter 2013, Vol. 37, No. 3, Pages 7-51,http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/ISEC_a_00107, GDI File]
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engagement prevents emergence of a dangerous security environment the United States’ overseas presence gives it the leverage to restrain partners from taking provocative action Europe is incapable of securing itself the U S s a substantial military presence Regarding the Middle East Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia might intensify security dilemmas East Asia, pessimism is pronounced apan and South Korea are likely to obtain a nuclear capacity and stoke a destabilizing reaction from China research across undermines that assumption states have preferences for prestige, status, and engage in trade-offs states that are secure engage in competitive behavior retrenchment would result in deterioration in the security environment in key regions withdrawal will yield with insecurity, arms racing, crisis instability, nuclear proliferation, and the like, or bids for regional hegemony beyond the capacity of local powers to contain including great power war
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US primacy prevents global conflict – diminishing power creates a vacuum that causes transition wars in multiple places
| 6,677 | 119 | 957 | 984 | 18 | 140 | 0.018293 | 0.142276 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,046 |
Agricultural Products - North America (NAFTA) Industry Guide is an essential resource for top-level data and analysis covering the Agricultural Products industry in each of the North American Free Trade Agreement (United States, Canada, and Mexico) countries. The report includes easily comparable data on market value, volume, segmentation and market share, plus full five year market forecasts. It examines future problems, innovations and potential growth areas within the market. Scope of the Report Contains an executive summary and data on value, volume and segmentation Provides textual analysis of the industry's prospects, competitive landscape and profiles of the leading companies Incorporates in-depth five forces competitive environment analysis and scorecards Compares data from the US, Canada and Mexico, alongside individual chapters on each country. . Includes a five-year forecast of the industry Highlights The agricultural products industry within the NAFTA countries had a total market value of $185,345.1 million in 2010. Mexico was the fastest growing country, with a CAGR of 9.1% over the 2006-10 period. The US is the leading country among the NAFTA bloc, with market revenues of $143,500 million in 2010. The US is expected to lead the Agricultural Products industry in the NAFTA bloc, with a value of $168,400 million in 2015
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Research and Markets ’12 (The worlds largest business researcher, Business Wire February 1, 2012, LEXIS //NS)
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NAFTA is an essential resource for top-level data and analysis covering the Agricultural Products industry in (United States, Canada, and Mexico The agricultural products industry within the NAFTA countries had a total market value of $185,345.1 million in 2010. Mexico was the fastest growing country The US is the leading country among the NAFTA bloc, with market revenues of $143,500 million in 2010. The US is expected to lead the Agricultural Products industry in the NAFTA bloc, with a value of $168,400 million in 2015
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NAFTA is key to agriculture
| 1,352 | 28 | 525 | 204 | 5 | 85 | 0.02451 | 0.416667 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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3,047 |
Impact of NAFTA in combination with US agricultural subsidies¶ Click here for "U.S. Dumping on Mexican Producers" table¶ The impact of NAFTA and other international agreements in combination with U.S. agricultural subsidies expel millions of Mexicans and other rural workers from their countries of origin into the United States territory every year.¶ According to Wise, who carried out a comparison of farm product prices in the U.S.-Mexico trade between 1997 and 2005, Mexico was flooded with agricultural imports exported at prices below production costs.¶ In his research, the eight products studied included corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, beef, pork and poultry. All products showed significant increase in exports—from the lowest 159 percent in soybean to the largest in pork exports at 707 percent.¶ For all products, Mexican producers’ prices fell from 44 to 67 percent from early 1990’s levels, declining local production and increasing import dependency. Mexican crop production also fell except for corn and meats, which at lower prices, was rapidly adopted for consumption in the Mexican families’ diet.¶ “An estimated 2.3 million people have left agriculture in a country desperate for livelihoods,” said Wise. The study estimated that the cost to Mexican producers was around $12.8 billion in the nine-year period, more than 10 percent of the U.S.-Mexico agricultural trade value annually.¶ The other cost, the one that we, north of the border pay, is the constant migration of these displaced rural workers into the United States.
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Baumann 1/11 (Susana G. Baumann, BA in accounting from Colegio Americano and Business Contributor for VOXXI, “Mexican Farmers Affected By Agricultural Subsidies From NAFTA, Other International Agreements, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/11/mexican-farmers-agricultural-subsidies_n_2457845.html, AL)
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The impact of NAFTA and other international agreements in combination with U.S. agricultural subsidies expel millions of Mexicans and other rural workers from their countries of origin into the United States territory every year Mexico was flooded with agricultural imports exported at prices below production costs. In his research, the eight products studied included corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, beef, pork and poultry. All products showed significant increase in exports—from the lowest 159 percent in soybean to the largest in pork exports at 707 percent. For all products, Mexican producers’ prices fell from 44 to 67 percent Mexican crop production also fell except for corn and meats, which at lower prices, was rapidly adopted for consumption in the Mexican families’ diet. “An estimated 2.3 million people have left agriculture in a country desperate for livelihoods,” said Wise. The study estimated that the cost to Mexican producers was around $12.8 billion in the nine-year period, more than 10 percent of the U.S.-Mexico agricultural trade value annually
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NAFTA increased US agricultural subsidies
| 1,551 | 41 | 1,076 | 239 | 5 | 165 | 0.020921 | 0.690377 |
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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3,048 |
The leading example in Latin America of the effect of size on the eco~¶ nomic health of a country is Mexico's involvement in the North Ameri-¶ can Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA has been in effect since 1994 and is¶ now responsible for 20 percent of Mexico's economic output," creating¶ many more jobs than it has lost, while simultaneously lowering the cost¶ of living for countless Mexican households." By fusing the economies of¶ the U.S., Canada, and Mexico into a mega-market of 420 million con-¶ sumers, NAFTA changed the business face of Mexico almost overnight,¶ propelling its economy into a world-class manufacturing and assembly¶ powerhouse.¶ NAFTA drove Mexico to displace Japan as the number two trading¶ partner of the United States by 1998. Between 1994 and 2002, U.S.-Mex-¶ ico trade had almost tripled, and had made both countries more compet-¶ itive internationally. The incoming tide of export and import deals made¶ the possibility of trading with Mexico loom large on the radar screens of¶ U.S. firms that had never before considered doing business in Latin Amer-¶ ica. Meanwhile, those same screens were blipping another regional-market¶ trade target further to the south.
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Becker ‘4 – economic development authority and management trainer specializing in Latin America, degrees in Latin American Studies and Ph.D. in International Business, former President and Managing Director of the Business Association of Latin American Studies (Thomas H, “Doing Business in Latin America: A Guide to Cultures, Practices, and Opportunities,” 2004)//ER
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The leading example in Latin America of the effect of size on the eco~¶ nomic health of a country is Mexico's involvement in the North Ameri-¶ can Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA is¶ now responsible for 20 percent of Mexico's economic output," creating¶ many more jobs than it has lost, while simultaneously lowering the cost¶ of living for countless Mexican households. , NAFTA changed the business face of Mexico almost overnight,¶ propelling its economy into a world-class manufacturing and assembly¶ powerhouse.¶ NAFTA drove Mexico to displace Japan as the number two trading¶ partner of the United States U.S.-Mex-¶ ico trade had almost tripled, and had made both countries more compet-¶ itive internationally incoming tide of export and import deals made¶ the possibility of trading with Mexico loom large on the radar screens of¶ U.S. firms that had never before considered doing business in Latin Amer-¶ ica. those same screens were blipping another regional-market¶ trade target further to the south.
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NAFTA solves jobs and increases US competitiveness
| 1,192 | 51 | 1,006 | 190 | 7 | 158 | 0.036842 | 0.831579 |
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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Myth No. 1: NAFTA has cost the United States jobs. Fact: U.S. employment rose from 110.8 million people in 1993 to 137.6 million in 2007, an increase of 24 percent. The average unemployment rate was 5.1 percent during the post-NAFTA period 1994-2007, compared to 7.1 percent during the pre-NAFTA period 1980-1993.21¶ Myth No. 2: NAFTA has hurt the U.S. manufacturing base. Fact: U.S. manufacturing output rose by 58 percent between 1993 and 2006, as compared to 42 percent between 1980 and 1993.22¶ Myth No. 3: NAFTA has suppressed U.S. wages. Fact: U.S. business sector real (i.e., adjusted for inflation) hourly compensation rose by 1.5 percent each year between 1993 and 2007, for a total of 23.6 percent over the full period. During 1979-1993, the annual rate of real hourly compensation rose by 0.7 percent each year, or 11 percent over the full 14-year period.23¶ Myth No. 4: NAFTA has reduced wages in Mexico. Fact: Mexican wages grew steadily after the 1994 peso crisis, reached precrisis levels in 1997, and have increased each year since. Several studies conclude that Mexican industries that export or that are in regions with a higher concentration of foreign investment and trade also have higher wages.
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Becker 11—Thomas H. Becker is an economic development authority and management trainer specializing in Latin America. He has lived, operated businesses, or worked in 16 Latin American countries, and currently serves as advisor to government agencies, private businesses, universities, and NGOs. His academic background includes degrees in Latin American American Studies and a Ph.D. in International Business. He has served on the Business faculty of five universities in the U.S. and Latin America, has written over 100 articles and book chapters in English and Spanish, and is a former President and Managing Director of the Business Association of Latin American Studies. [Becker, Thomas H.“Doing Business in the New Latin America: Keys to Profit in America’s Next-Door Markets”—2nd Edition. Pg 51]//MM
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U.S. employment rose from 110.8 million people in 1993 to 137.6 million in 2007, an increase of 24 percent. U.S. manufacturing output rose by 58 percent between 1993 and 2006, as compared to 42 percent between 1980 and 1993. U.S. business sector real (i.e., adjusted for inflation) hourly compensation rose by 1.5 percent each year between 1993 and 2007, for a total of 23.6 percent over the full period Mexican wages grew steadily after the 1994 peso crisis, reached precrisis levels in 1997, and have increased each year since Mexican industries with a higher concentration of foreign investment and trade also have higher wages.
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NAFTA Helped Manufacturing and Jobs on both sides
| 1,216 | 49 | 631 | 200 | 8 | 104 | 0.04 | 0.52 |
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Even those who may agree that the effect of trade on total employment¶ is essentially zero may oppose free trade in the belief that it shifts jobs¶ into less desirable sectors. One of the greatest concerns in recent de-¶ cades has been that trade has led to the "deindustrialization" of the U.S.¶ economy in which good jobs in manufacturing have been sacrificed for¶ bad jobs in services.¶ It is certainly true that the number of jobs in manufacturing has¶ declined in recent decades. US employment in manufacturing fell from¶ 17.9 million workers in 1970 to 15.9 million in 2007. Manufacturing’s¶ share of total employment fell even more sharply. from 25 percent of the¶ nonfarm workforce in 1970 to 10 percent in 2007. At the same time, real¶ manufacturing output has increased significantly, by nearly 40 percent in¶ the 1990s alone, and has declined only slightly as a share of GDP when¶ measured at constant prices. This contrast is shown in figure 4.3, which illustrates the vast increase in domestic manufacturing output while the¶ manufacturing workforce has been unchanged or declining. How is this¶ possible? By rapid increases in labor productivity. Just as US agricultural¶ output has increased steadily even as the number of farmers has de-¶ clined, manufacturing has been a victim of its own success in increasing¶ labor productivity.¶ The flip side to these developments is that a growing share of¶ the labor force is employed in the service sector. As consumers have¶ shifted their spending to such services as health care, education, recre-¶ ation, and personal finance, the economy has responded by devoting¶ more resources to those sectors. Because of the relatively poor produc-¶ tivity performance in these service sectors, a greater share of the labor¶ force has to be devoted to these occupations in order to increase output¶ and meet consumer demands.
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Irwin ‘9 – professor of economics at Dartmouth College and the author of Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade (Douglas A, “Free Trade under Fire,” 2009, Princeton University Press)//ER
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One of the greatest concerns in recent de-¶ cades has been that trade has led to the "deindustrialization" of the U.S.¶ economy in which good jobs in manufacturing have been sacrificed for¶ bad jobs in services.¶ the number of jobs in manufacturing has¶ declined in recent decades. US employment in manufacturing fell real¶ manufacturing output has increased significantly, by nearly 40 percent in¶ the 1990s alone, and has declined only slightly as a share of GDP when¶ measured at constant prices. this¶ possible? By rapid increases in labor productivity. manufacturing has been a victim of its own success in increasing¶ labor productivity.¶ a growing share of¶ the labor force is employed in the service sector. As consumers have¶ shifted their spending to such services as health care, education, recre-¶ ation, and personal finance, the economy has responded by devoting¶ more resources to those sectors. a greater share of the labor¶ force has to be devoted to these occupations in order to increase output¶ and meet consumer demands.
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NAFTA is key to jobs in the Manufacturing Sector
| 1,875 | 49 | 1,041 | 305 | 9 | 167 | 0.029508 | 0.547541 |
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The overall effect of NAFTA on the U.S. economy has been relatively small, primarily because two-way trade with Mexico amounts to less than 3% of U.S. GDP. Thus, any changes in trade patterns with Mexico would not be expected to be significant in relation to the overall U.S. economy. In some sectors, however, trade-related effects could be more significant, especially in those industries that were more exposed to the removal of tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, such as the textile and apparel, and automotive industries. Since NAFTA, the automotive, textile, and apparel industries have experienced some of the more noteworthy changes in trading patterns, which may also have affected U.S. employment in these industries. U.S. trade with Mexico has increased considerably more than U.S. trade with other countries, and Mexico has become a more significant trading partner with the United States since NAFTA implementation. In the automotive industry, the industry comprising the most U.S. trade with Mexico, NAFTA provisions consisted of a phased elimination of tariffs, the gradual removal of many non-tariff barriers to trade including rules of origin provisions, enhanced protection of intellectual property rights, less restrictive government procurement practices, and the elimination of performance requirements on investors from other NAFTA countries. These provisions may have accelerated the ongoing trade patterns between the United States and Mexico. Because the United States and Canada were already highly integrated, most of the trade impacts on the U.S. automotive industry relate to trade liberalization with Mexico. Prior to NAFTA Mexico had a series of government decrees protecting the domestic auto sector by reserving the domestic automobile market for domestically produced parts and vehicles. NAFTA established the removal of Mexico’s restrictive trade and investment policies and the elimination of U.S. tariffs on autos and auto parts. By 2006, the automotive industry has had the highest dollar increase ($41 billion) in total U.S. trade with Mexico since NAFTA passage.
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Villarreal 2012 – Specialist in International Trade and Finance, Congressional Research Service (M. Angeles, “U.S-MEXICO ECONOMIC RELATIONS: TRENDS, ISSUES, AND IMPLICATIONS” August 9, 2012 http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32934.pdf //SRM)
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Since NAFTA, the automotive, textile, and apparel industries have experienced noteworthy changes in trading patterns which also affected U.S. employment in these industries U.S. trade with Mexico has increased considerabl and Mexico has become a more significant trading partner with the United States since NAFTA implementation most impacts on the U.S. automotive industry relate to trade liberalization with Mexico. Prior to NAFTA Mexico had government decrees reserving the domestic automobile market for domestically produced vehicles NAFTA established the elimination of U.S. tariffs on autos and auto parts By 2006, the automotive industry has had the highest dollar increase ($41 billion) in total U.S. trade with Mexico since NAFTA passage
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Mexico staying in NAFTA is especially essential to the U.S. auto industry
| 2,105 | 73 | 747 | 315 | 12 | 109 | 0.038095 | 0.346032 |
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The DMSMS database is an example of how badly the industrial base is deteriorating. According to the Government Industry Data Exchange Program (GIDEP), in 2002, “1,523 manufacturers reported 253,832 DMSMS parts. According to the Air Force DMSMS Guide, “In today’s high-tech Air Force, the ultimate performance of aircraft, missiles, and numerous other weapon systems depends on a multitude of important and often complex components. When one of these components (e.g. a microcircuit) becomes obsolete or unavailable, the impact can extend throughout the weapon system affecting cost and system readiness.” The services are all trying to “lessen or eliminate the risks caused by parts non-availability before the weapon system is adversely affected.” The commercial manufacturers increasingly lose interest in supporting the military market because it is so small. Many manufacturing companies find that it is not economically feasible to support very small volumes over long periods of time. All the services have DMSMS issues. As an example for the DMSMS effort at the Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB, “DMSMS impacts every weapon system in the inventory – past, present and future….” The Air Force has said that DMSMS is driven by many factors but one reason is the extended weapon system’s life in the Air Force inventory. For example, B-52s may be used more than 94 years, C-130s, more than 79 years, C-135s, more than 86 years and the F-15, more than 51 years. None of these planes was designed to fly that long. So, mission capable systems and readiness are put at risk if DMSMS issues are left unresolved. What is not always understood is the reality that the auto industry affects DMSMS at DoD because the industrial infrastructure that supports the Department of Defense is shared by the auto industry. When a tier supplier to the automobile industry goes under whether it is a machine tool company or in micro-electronics, it reduces DoD’s ability to function and solve its DMSMS problems. When government R&D investment in an industry deteriorates, it is only a matter of time before an industry is in trouble. Manufacturing R&D by the federal government is declining. According to Manufacturing News, “in the mid 1990s, the government was spending $1.5 billion on manufacturing related R&D, including such programs as Technologies Enabling Agile Manufacturing at the Energy Department and $500 million in electronics manufacturing programs at DARPA. Both of those programs have been discontinued.” In May 2001, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Strategic Industries and Economic Security, in partnership with the Carderock Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, completed a three-year national security assessment of the U.S. shipbuilding and repair industry. Some of the findings were disconcerting though related to both DMSMS and the auto industry. According to the study, employment in the industry has “dropped sharply since the early 1980s, when total private employment was close to 180,000 workers. Survey estimates indicated that employment would decline to about 83,500 in 2000.” In addition, “orders for U.S. warships have declined 60 percent during the 10 years since the end of the Cold War.” Young people no longer view working in a shipyard as a viable way to make a living. Consequently, according to DOC, “survey responses indicate that labor shortages have reduced profits, impacted construction costs, and delayed project completion for most shipyards.” According to the study, the basis for U.S. ship-building superiority has been the research and development expertise that currently resides in Navy’s laboratories, acquisition commands, and certain shipbuilders and universities. “Collectively, these organizations have conceived and designed most of the state-of-the-art hull, mechanical, electrical, power projection, air defense and undersea warfare capabilities that are operational today. With reduced research and development budgets, some of that capability now is becoming fragmented.” Many lower tier companies supply to both the auto industry and shipbuilding, but the auto industry is much larger. This situation in shipbuilding also exists in other industries, such as machine tools, the high performance explosives and explosive components industry, cartridge and propellant actuated device sector and welding and all of these industries share the bottom of the base with the auto industry. We need to maintain a capability to be globally competitive in product and process innovation – we must regain our manufacturing prowess and leadership. We cannot become a country that manufactures little. We need to reinvigorate the Manufacturing Extension Partnership program at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. We need to prioritize those technologies that are critical to regaining and then maintaining leadership and competitive advantage in the overall industrial base so China does not become the world’s leader in technologies we need to be a superpower. China is becoming the manufacturing capital of the world. A small example is that Chinese officials have publicly stated they want to become the foundry capital of the world to have a world-wide monopoly on cast parts. The Casting Emissions Reduction Program (CERP) of the U.S. Army is an excellent example of ways that Congress can provide mechanisms for industry and the military to work together to stem the erosion of the industrial base to everyone’s benefit. We need to increase our investment in R&D to produce the leading edge knowledge, capabilities and patents the country must have to remain an economic and military superpower. This means we must increase funding to the national laboratories not only from Energy, Commerce and Defense but across the board. We also need to rethink our trade, offset and CFIUS policies to encourage the maintenance of high value-added jobs inside the country and we need to reform those national systems that are keeping our industry uncompetitive including pension and health care, particularly in the auto industry. The bankruptcy of Delphi is only the first of many dominos to fall if we don’t do something dramatic about this situation. CFIUS must be completely rethought. Having General Motors under the control of foreigners is not the answer. Many foreign entities buy U.S. assets not to use them, but to dismantle them. Even Daimler’s takeover of Chrysler removed serious capabilities to Germany, though no one will go on the record with specifics. The Department of Defense regularly implies that the U.S. industrial base is healthy. DoD does not take into consideration all the systems that compose their piece of the industrial base, nor how their systems interact with others such as autos. Cooperation between government and industry is essential because there are elements of the U.S. industrial base that are disintegrating, and are putting the national security of the United States at risk. Unless we look at the industrial base as a system, we do not even see the problem or the possible military implications. We also are not even asking whether or not a U.S. “owned” industrial base matters, and we must explore this issue as a nation. The White House, Congress and the entire spectrum of the agencies and departments of the federal government need to understand these issues. At the moment they do not. Unless something changes, the U.S. may cease to be a superpower.
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Ronis, Director Of Mba Programs At Walsh College, 7/17/2006 [SHEILA R, http://www.uscc.gov/hearings/2006hearings/written_testimonies/06_07_17wrts/ronis_statement.pdf]
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In today’s high-tech Air Force, the ultimate performance of aircraft depends on important and often components. When one of these components becomes obsolete or unavailable, the impact can extend throughout the weapon system affecting cost and system readiness The commercial manufacturers increasingly lose interest in supporting the military market because it is so small Many manufacturing companies find that it is not economically feasible to support very small volumes over long periods of time What is not always understood is the reality that the auto industry affects DMSMS at DoD because the industrial infrastructure that supports the D o D is shared by the auto industry When a tier supplier to the automobile industry goes under whether it is a machine tool company or in micro-electronics, it reduces DoD’s ability to function and solve its DMSMS problems When government R&D investment in an industry deteriorates, it is only a matter of time before an industry is in trouble Many lower tier companies supply to both the auto industry and shipbuilding, but the auto industry is much larger. This situation in shipbuilding also exists in other industries, such as machine tools, the high performance explosives and explosive components industry, cartridge and propellant actuated device sector and welding these industries share the bottom of the base with the auto industry. We need to maintain a capability to be globally competitive in product and process innovation – we must regain our manufacturing prowess and leadership t
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Auto Industry Key To Heg – Air Power And Naval Power
| 7,492 | 52 | 1,544 | 1,173 | 11 | 243 | 0.009378 | 0.207161 |
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This subsection attempts to synthesize some of the key operational implications distilled from the analyses relating to the rise of Asia and the potential for conflict in each of its constituent regions. The first key implication derived from the analysis of trends in Asia suggests that American air and space power will continue to remain critical for conventional and unconventional deterrence in Asia. This argument is justified by the fact that several subregions of the continent still harbor the potential for full-scale conventional war. This potential is most conspicuous on the Korean peninsula and, to a lesser degree, in South Asia, the Persian Gulf, and the South China Sea. In some of these areas, such as Korea and the Persian Gulf, the United States has clear treaty obligations and, therefore, has preplanned the use of air power should contingencies arise. U.S. Air Force assets could also be called upon for operations in some of these other areas. In almost all these cases, U.S. air power would be at the forefront of an American politico-military response because (a) of the vast distances on the Asian continent; (b) the diverse range of operational platforms available to the U.S. Air Force, a capability unmatched by any other country or service; (c) the possible unavailability of naval assets in close proximity, particularly in the context of surprise contingencies; and (d) the heavy payload that can be carried by U.S. Air Force platforms. These platforms can exploit speed, reach, and high operating tempos to sustain continual operations until the political objectives are secured. The entire range of warfighting capability—fighters, bombers, electronic warfare (EW), suppression of enemy air defense (SEAD), combat support platforms such as AWACS and J-STARS, and tankers—are relevant in the Asia-Pacific region, because many of the regional contingencies will involve armed operations against large, fairly modern, conventional forces, most of which are built around large land armies, as is the case in Korea, China-Taiwan, India-Pakistan, and the Persian Gulf. In addition to conventional combat, the demands of unconventional deterrence will increasingly confront the U.S. Air Force in Asia. The Korean peninsula, China, and the Indian subcontinent are already arenas of WMD proliferation. While emergent nuclear capabilities continue to receive the most public attention, chemical and biological warfare threats will progressively become future problems. The delivery systems in the region are increasing in range and diversity. China already targets the continental United States with ballistic missiles. North Korea can threaten northeast Asia with existing Scud-class theater ballistic missiles. India will acquire the capability to produce ICBM-class delivery vehicles, and both China and India will acquire long-range cruise missiles during the time frames examined in this report. The second key implication derived from the analysis of trends in Asia suggests that air and space power will function as a vital rapid reaction force in a breaking crisis. Current guidance tasks the Air Force to prepare for two major regional conflicts that could break out in the Persian Gulf and on the Korean peninsula. In other areas of Asia, however, such as the Indian subcontinent, the South China Sea, Southeast Asia, and Myanmar, the United States has no treaty obligations requiring it to commit the use of its military forces. But as past experience has shown, American policymakers have regularly displayed the disconcerting habit of discovering strategic interests in parts of the world previously neglected after conflicts have already broken out. Mindful of this trend, it would behoove U.S. Air Force planners to prudently plan for regional contingencies in nontraditional areas of interest, because naval and air power will of necessity be the primary instruments constituting the American response. Such responses would be necessitated by three general classes of contingencies. The first involves the politico-military collapse of a key regional actor, as might occur in the case of North Korea, Myanmar, Indonesia, or Pakistan. The second involves acute politicalmilitary crises that have a potential for rapid escalation, as may occur in the Taiwan Strait, the Spratlys, the Indian subcontinent, or on the Korean peninsula. The third involves cases of prolonged domestic instability that may have either spillover or contagion effects, as in China, Indonesia, Myanmar, or North Korea.
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Zalmay Khalizad and Ian Lesser, Senior Analysts at RAND. Sources of Conflict in the 21st Century, 1998, http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR897/MR897.chap3.pdf
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American air power will remain critical for deterrence in Asia potential for full-scale war This is conspicuous on the Korean peninsula South Asia, the Persian Gulf, and the South China Sea U.S. air power would be at the forefront of an American response because of the vast distances the unavailability of naval assets and the heavy payload that can be carried The entire range of warfighting capability are relevant Korea China, and the Indian subcontinent are arenas of WMD proliferation nuclear chemical and biological warfare threats will become problems air power will function as a vital rapid reaction force of necessity the primary response
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And, Flexible rapid reaction of US airpower is crucial to averting and de-escalating WMD conflicts in the Persian Gulf, Koreas, South China Seas and between India and Pakistan
| 4,534 | 175 | 651 | 692 | 28 | 104 | 0.040462 | 0.150289 |
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In May 2001, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Office of Strategic Industries and Economic Security, in partnership with the Carderock Division of the Naval Surface Warfare Center, completed a threeyear national security assessment of the U.S. shipbuilding and repair industry. Some of the findings were disconcerting though related to both DMSMS and the auto industry. According to the study, employment in the industry has “dropped sharply since the early 1980s, when total private employment was close to 180,000 workers. Survey estimates indicated that employment would decline to about 83,500 in 2000.” In addition, “orders for U.S. warships have declined 60 percent during the 10 years since the end of the Cold War.” Young people no longer view working in a shipyard as a viable way to make a living. Consequently, according to DOC, “survey responses indicate that labor shortages have reduced profits, impacted construction costs, and delayed project completion for most shipyards.” According to the study, the basis for U.S. shipbuilding superiority has been the research and development expertise that currently resides in Navy’s laboratories, acquisition commands, and certain shipbuilders and universities. “Collectively, these organizations have conceived and designed most of the stateofthe108 art hull, mechanical, electrical, power projection, air defense and undersea warfare capabilities that are operational today. With reduced research and development budgets, some of that capability now is becoming fragmented.” Many lower tier companies supply to both the auto industry and shipbuilding, but the auto industry is much larger. This situation in shipbuilding also exists in other industries, such as machine tools, the high performance explosives and explosive components industry, cartridge and propellant actuated device sector and welding and all of these industries share the bottom of the base with the auto industry.
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Ronis 06 Prepared Statement of Dr. Sheila Ronis, Director, MBA/MS Programs, Walsh College; Vice President, National Defense University Foundation, Troy, Michigan CHINA’S IMPACT ON THE U.S. AUTO AND AUTO PARTS INDUSTRIES HEARING BEFORE THE U.S.CHINA ECONOMIC AND SECURITY REVIEW COMMISSION ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS SECOND SESSION _________ July 17, 2006 http://www.uscc.gov/hearings/2006hearings/transcripts/july_17/06_07_17_trans.pdf
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Young people no longer view working in a shipyard as a viable way to make a living According to the study, the basis for U.S. shipbuilding superiority has been the research and development expertise that currently resides in Navy’s laboratories, acquisition commands, and certain shipbuilders and universities. these organizations have conceived and designed most of the stateofthe108 art hull, mechanical, electrical, power projection, air defense and undersea warfare capabilities that are operational today. Many lower tier companies supply to both the auto industry and shipbuilding, but the auto industry is much larger. This situation in shipbuilding also exists in other industries such as explosives propellant and welding and all of these industries share the bottom of the base with the auto industry.
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Key to the Navy
| 1,948 | 16 | 815 | 286 | 4 | 122 | 0.013986 | 0.426573 |
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Deter major power war. No other disruption is as potentially disastrous to global stability as war among major powers. Maintenance and extension of this Nation’s comparative seapower advantage is a key component of deterring major power war. While war with another great power strikes many as improbable, the near-certainty of its ruinous effects demands that it be actively deterred using all elements of national power. The expeditionary character of maritime forces—our lethality, global reach, speed, endurance, ability to overcome barriers to access, and operational agility—provide the joint commander with a range of deterrent options. We will pursue an approach to deterrence that includes a credible and scalable ability to retaliate against aggressors conventionally, unconventionally, and with nuclear forces. Win our Nation’s wars. In times of war, our ability to impose local sea control, overcome challenges to access, force entry, and project and sustain power ashore, makes our maritime forces an indispensable element of the joint or combined force. This expeditionary advantage must be maintained because it provides joint and combined force commanders with freedom of maneuver. Reinforced by a robust sealift capability that can concentrate and sustain forces, sea control and power projection enable extended campaigns ashore.
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Conway et al 7 [James T., General, U.S. Marine Corps, Gary Roughead, Admiral, U.S. Navy, Thad W. Allen, Admiral, U.S. Coast Guard, “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower,” October, http://www.navy.mil/maritime/MaritimeStrategy.pdf]
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No other disruption is as potentially disastrous to global stability as war among major powers Maintenance and extension of this Nation’s comparative seapower advantage is a key component of deterring major power war the near-certainty of its ruinous effects demands that it be actively deterred using all elements of national power. The expeditionary character of maritime forces—our lethality, global reach, speed, endurance, ability to overcome barriers to access, and operational agility—provide the joint commander with a range of deterrent options Win our Nation’s wars. In times of war, our ability to impose local sea control, overcome challenges to access, force entry, and project and sustain power ashore, makes our maritime forces an indispensable element of the joint or combined force Reinforced by a robust sealift capability that can concentrate and sustain forces, sea control and power projection enable extended campaigns ashore
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Solves great power wars
| 1,346 | 23 | 947 | 197 | 4 | 141 | 0.020305 | 0.715736 |
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The auto industry is one of the most important industries in the United States. It historically has contributed 3 – 3.5 percent to the overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The industry directly employs over 1.7 million people engaged in designing, engineering, manufacturing, and supplying parts and components to assemble, sell and service new motor vehicles. In addition, the industry is a huge consumer of goods and services from many other sectors, including raw materials, construction, machinery, legal, computers and semi-conductors, financial, advertising, and healthcare. The auto industry spends $16 to $18 billion every year on research and product development – 99 percent of which is funded by the industry itself. Due to the industry’s consumption of products from many other manufacturing sectors, it is a major driver of the 11.5% manufacturing contribution to GDP. Without the auto sector, it is difficult to imagine manufacturing surviving in this country.
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Hill et al 10- Sustainable Transportation and Communities Group and Project Lead, Project Manager of the center for automotive research, Research Associate at the center for automotive research, (Kim, Debbie Menk, Adam Cooper, “Contribution of the Automotive Industry to the Economics of All Fifty States and the Unites States”, http://www.oesa.org/Doc-Vault/Industry-Information-Analysis/CAR-Economic-Significance-Report.pdf0.
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The auto industry is one of the most important industries in the United States. I has contributed 3 – 3.5 percent to the overall Gross Domestic Product The industry directly employs over 1.7 million people engaged in designing, engineering, manufacturing, and supplying parts and components to assemble, sell and service new motor vehicle the industry is a huge consumer of goods and services from many other sectors, including raw materials, construction, machinery, legal, computers and semi-conductors, financial, advertising, and healthcare. 99 percent of which is funded by the industry itself. it is a major driver of the 11.5% manufacturing contribution to GDP. Without the auto sector, it is difficult to imagine manufacturing surviving in this country.
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Auto industry is key to the economy- consumer goods and multiplier effect
| 975 | 74 | 761 | 148 | 12 | 116 | 0.081081 | 0.783784 |
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AMERICA’S automobile industry is in desperate trouble. Financial instability, the credit squeeze and closed capital markets are hurting domestic automakers, while decades of competition from foreign producers have eroded market share and consumer loyalty. Some economists question the wisdom of Washington’s intervening to help the Big Three, arguing that the automakers should pay the price for their own mistakes or that the market will correct itself. But we must act: aiding the American automobile industry is not only an economic imperative, but also a national security imperative. When President Dwight Eisenhower observed that America’s greatest strength wasn’t its military, but its economy, he must have had companies like General Motors and Ford in mind. Sitting atop a vast pyramid of tool makers, steel producers, fabricators and component manufacturers, these companies not only produced the tanks and trucks that helped win World War II, but also lent their technology to aircraft and ship manufacturing. The United States truly became the arsenal of democracy. During the 1950s, advances in aviation, missiles, satellites and electronics made Detroit seem a little old-fashioned in dealing with the threat of the Soviet Union. The Army’s requests for new trucks and other basic transportation usually came out a loser in budget battles against missile technology and new modifications for the latest supersonic jet fighter. Not only were airplanes far sexier but they also counted as part of our military “tooth,” while much of the land forces’ needs were “tail.” And in those days, “more teeth, less tail” had become a key concept in military spending. But in 1991, the Persian Gulf War demonstrated the awesome utility of American land power, and the Humvee (and its civilian version, the Hummer) became a star. Likewise, the ubiquitous homemade bombs of the current Iraq insurgency have led to the development of innovative armor-protected wheeled vehicles for American forces, as well as improvements in our fleets of Humvees, tanks, armored fighting vehicles, trucks and cargo carriers. In a little more than a year, the Army has procured and fielded in Iraq more than a thousand so-called mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicles. The lives of hundreds of soldiers and marines have been saved, and their tasks made more achievable, by the efforts of the American automotive industry. And unlike in World War II, America didn’t have to divert much civilian capacity to meet these military needs. Without a vigorous automotive sector, those needs could not have been quickly met. More challenges lie ahead for our military, and to meet them we need a strong industrial base. For years the military has sought better sources of electric power in its vehicles — necessary to allow troops to monitor their radios with diesel engines off, to support increasingly high-powered communications technology, and eventually to support electric propulsion and innovative armaments like directed-energy weapons. In sum, this greater use of electricity will increase combat power while reducing our footprint. Much research and development spending has gone into these programs over the years, but nothing on the manufacturing scale we really need. Now, though, as Detroit moves to plug-in hybrids and electric-drive technology, the scale problem can be remedied. Automakers are developing innovative electric motors, many with permanent magnet technology, that will have immediate military use. And only the auto industry, with its vast purchasing power, is able to establish a domestic advanced battery industry. Likewise, domestic fuel cell production — which will undoubtedly have many critical military applications — depends on a vibrant car industry. To be sure, the public should demand transformation and new standards in the auto industry before paying to keep it alive. And we should insist that Detroit’s goals include putting America in first place in hybrid and electric automotive technology, reducing the emissions of the country’s transportation fleet, and strengthening our competitiveness abroad. This should be no giveaway. Instead, it is a historic opportunity to get it right in Detroit for the good of the country. But Americans must bear in mind that any federal assistance plan would not be just an economic measure. This is, fundamentally, about national security.
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Clark, ‘8 - retired Army general and former supreme allied commander of NATO, is a senior fellow at the Burkle Center for International Relations at the University of California at Los Angeles. (Wesley K., “What’s Good for G.M. Is Good for the Army”, New York Times, November 16, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/16/opinion/16clark.html?_r=3) //CH
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aiding the American automobile industry is a national security imperative When Eisenhower observed America’s greatest strength wasn’t military, but economy, he must have had companies like G M and Ford in mind. these companies not only produced the tanks and trucks that helped win World War II, but also lent their technology to aircraft and ship manufacturing. The United States truly became the arsenal of democracy. During the 1950s, The Army’s requests for new transportation usually came out a loser in budget battles against missile tech and modifications for the latest supersonic jet fighter But in 1991, the Persian Gulf War demonstrated the awesome utility of American land power, and the Humvee became a star. Likewise, the ubiquitous homemade bombs of the Iraq insurgency have led to armor-protected wheeled vehicles for American forces, as well as improvements in our fleets of Humvees, tanks, armored fighting vehicles, trucks and cargo carriers The lives of hundreds of soldiers and marines have been saved, and their tasks made more achievable, by the American auto industry. And unlike in World War II, America didn’t have to divert much civilian capacity to meet these military needs. Without a vigorous automotive sector, those needs could not have been quickly met. More challenges lie ahead for our military, and to meet them we need a strong industrial base. For years the military has sought electric power in its vehicles — necessary to allow troops to monitor their radios with diesel engines off, to support communications and eventually electric propulsion and innovative armaments like directed-energy weapons , this greater use of electricity will increase combat power while reducing our footprint. Automakers are developing electric motors with permanent magnet technology, that will have immediate military use. And only the auto industry, is able to establish a domestic advanced battery industry. Likewise, domestic fuel cell production depends on a vibrant car industry Americans must bear in mind that This is, fundamentally, about national security.
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The auto industry is vital to hegemony and conquering 21st century rivals
| 4,398 | 74 | 2,087 | 678 | 12 | 324 | 0.017699 | 0.477876 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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The increasing global demand for energy, the limited availability of natural resources, rising energy prices and the threat of climate change require solutions for enabling energy to be handled more efficiently. In order to meet the requirements of climate policy, for instance for reducing CO2 emissions, it is necessary to increase efficiency throughout the entire chain of utilisable energy ñ that is, for the production, transmission and consumption of energy. Innovations from the semiconductor industry are playing a key role with regard to implementing these objectives. The requirement for more energy efficiency will have a positive impact particularly on demand for power semiconductors in the course of the next few years. This is applicable specifically to renewable energies, as well as for example to motor drives in industrial applications and in household products. With regard to power semiconductors for renewable energies, market researchers are assuming average annual growth rates of 18% in the course of the next years.1 Solar and wind power will continue to be two of the main growth drivers. Power semiconductors are the core of rectifiers in photovoltaic and wind power installations, and are a key component for efficiently supplying power to the network.
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Bauer 9 – CEO of Infineon, a leading semiconductor company (Peter, “A change of pace for the semiconductor industry?”, PricewaterhouseCoopers, November 2009, http://www.pwc.com/en_GX/gx/technology/pdf/change-of-pace-in-the-semiconductor-industry.pdf)//CH
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increasing global demand for energy limited availability of natural resources rising energy prices and the threat of climate change require solutions for energy to be more efficient In order to meet requirements of climate policy it is necessary to increase efficiency Innovations from the semiconductor industry are playing a key role with regard to implementing these objectives This is applicable to renewable energies, as well as to motor drives in industrial applications and in household products Solar and wind power will continue to be two of the main growth drivers. Power semiconductors are the core of photovoltaic and wind power installations, and are a key component for efficiently supplying power to the network.
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Semiconductors are vital to addressing climate change
| 1,281 | 54 | 727 | 197 | 7 | 113 | 0.035533 | 0.573604 |
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Unfortunately, not all countries that have liberalized their trade policies have enjoyed such dramatic successes. For example, Mexico significantly reduced tariffs and other trade barriers when it joined the GATT in 1985 and signed free trade agreements with the United States and Canada (NAFTA) in 1994 and the European Union in 2000. As a result, Mexico’s trade and foreign investment increased significantly. The share of trade (average of exports and imports) in GDP rose from 13 percent in 1985 to 52 percent in 2002. These reforms improved productivity in industries exposed to international competition, as described in chapter 2.¶ However, Mexico’s overall macroeconomic performance has been disappointing since NAFTA. Economic growth has been lackluster.¶ Employment is only slightly higher than before the agreement took effect, and real wages are actually lower. NAFTA opponents blame open¶ trade for Mexico’s problems. These critics say that NAFTA has harmed¶ farmers and is responsible for the lack of improvement in the standard of¶ living of workers.¶ The real source of Mexico’s malaise is macroeconomic, In December 1994, about a year alter NAFTA went into effect, and for reasons¶ not related to the trade agreement, Mexico faced a speculative attack on¶ the peso and was forced to devalue its currency. The peso crisis stemmed¶ from an inconsistency between Mexico’s monetary policy and its commitment to maintain at a fixed exchange rate. The peso devaluation was a¶ severe setback that slashed real wages overnight and sent the economy¶ into a deep recession.¶ By keeping trade flows moving, NAFTA helped the Mexican¶ economy through a difficult period. The continued expansion of trade¶ promoted the country’s recovery from this traumatic shock. Yet since the¶ initial rebound, the Mexican economy has been weak. The reason for¶ this disappointing performance is not trade related, but a persistent and¶ severe credit crunch, including a deterioration in contract enforceability¶ and an increase in nonperforming bank loans. Indeed, Mexico’s credit-to-GDP ratio fell from 49 percent in 1994 to 17 percent in 2002, preventing any broad-based economic recovery?"
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Irwin ‘9 – professor of economics at Dartmouth College and the author of Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade (Douglas A, “Free Trade under Fire,” 2009, Princeton University Press)//ER
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, Mexico significantly reduced tariffs and other trade barriers when it joined the GATT in 1985 and signed free trade agreements with the United States and Canada (NAFTA) in 1994 and the European Union in 2000. As a result, Mexico’s trade and foreign investment increased significantly. The share of trade in GDP rose from 13 percent in 1985 to 52 percent in 2002. These reforms improved productivity in industries exposed to international competition Mexico’s overall macroeconomic performance has been disappointing NAFTA opponents blame open¶ trade for Mexico’s problems. The real source of Mexico’s malaise is macroeconomic Mexico faced a speculative attack on¶ the peso and was forced to devalue its currency. The peso crisis stemmed¶ from an inconsistency between Mexico’s monetary policy and its commitment to maintain at a fixed exchange rate peso devaluation was a¶ severe setback that slashed real wages overnight and sent the economy¶ into a deep recession.¶ NAFTA helped the Mexican¶ economy through a difficult period. The continued expansion of trade¶ promoted the country’s recovery from this traumatic shock. Yet since the¶ initial rebound, the Mexican economy has been weak. The reason for¶ this disappointing performance is not trade related, but a persistent and¶ severe credit crunch, including a deterioration in contract enforceability¶ and an increase in nonperforming bank loans.
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NAFTA is key to the Mexican Economy—assumes all of their alt cause claims
| 2,182 | 74 | 1,403 | 334 | 13 | 214 | 0.038922 | 0.640719 |
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To an extent, global trade stimulates accountability and therefore can¶ contribute to the reduction of one of the most damaging problems for¶ economic growth and public morale: corruption. The interconnection¶ of markets and enhanced transparency, which comes with trade liberal-¶ ization, can become critical elements for reducing discretionary powers¶ and economic rent seeking, both of which are well-known sources of¶ corruption.¶ Free trade has also contributed directly to a lessening of corruption.¶ As multiple firms from various nations compete to get access to domes-¶ tic markets, both for investment opportunities and trade deals, free¶ trade contributes to make the procedures of international transactions¶ more transparent and homogeneous. The room for bribery and cor-¶ ruption can diminish to a certain extent when traders do not have t0¶ obtain import licenses or to negotiate the terms of FDI with govern-¶ ment officials.
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Reyes-Heroles ‘4 – president of Structura, a Mexican consulting firm, cofounder and executive president of the Grupo de Economistas y Asociados, was ambassador of Mexico to the United States from October 1997 to November 2000, was secretary of energy in President Ernesto Zedillo’s Cabinet (Jesus F, “North American Integration: A Spontaneous or a Driven Enterprise?” from chapter 15 of “NAFTA’s Impact on North America: The First Decade,” edited by Sidney Weintraub, published 2004, CSIS)//ER
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global trade stimulates accountability and therefore can¶ contribute to the reduction of one of the most damaging problems for¶ economic growth and public morale: corruption. The interconnection¶ of markets and enhanced transparency, which comes with trade liberal-¶ ization, can become critical elements for reducing discretionary powers¶ and economic rent seeking, both of which are well-known sources of¶ corruption.¶ Free trade has also contributed directly to a lessening of corruption.¶ free¶ trade contributes to make the procedures of international transactions¶ more transparent and homogeneous. The room for bribery and cor-¶ ruption can diminish to a certain extent when traders do not have t0¶ obtain import licenses or to negotiate the terms of FDI with govern-¶ ment officials.
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Free trade solves corruption
| 941 | 28 | 791 | 140 | 4 | 116 | 0.028571 | 0.828571 |
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¶ MEXICO CITY — Andrés Granier has a sumptuous wardrobe and lifestyle. He has bragged about owning 400 pairs of shoes, 300 suits and 1,000 shirts, collected from luxury stores in New York and Los Angeles. His purchases barely fit in his several properties, scattered throughout Mexico and abroad.¶ Enlarge This Image¶ ¶ Bernardo Montoya/Reuters¶ Tapes of Andrés Granier, center, the former governor of Tabasco State, boasting of his lifestyle were leaked to a radio station.¶ ¶ America Rocio/Associated Press¶ Cash that was found on a property linked to José Manuel Saiz, Mr. Granier’s treasurer. Mr. Saiz was arrested this month.¶ A tape recording of Mr. Granier’s boasts, making him sound like a highflying corporate executive, was leaked to a local radio station last month. But his job title, until December, was governor of a midsize southeastern Mexican state, a position that currently pays about $92,000 a year after taxes.¶ ¶ “We go to Fifth Avenue and buy a pair of shoes; $600,” Mr. Granier is heard saying about one of his trips abroad. “I took clothes to Miami, I took clothes to Cancún, I took clothes to my house, and I have leftovers,” he added, saying, “I’m going to auction them off.” (The day after the recording was made public, he said that he had been inebriated while making those statements in October.)¶ ¶ But just as eye-opening as the extravagances of a public official — now under investigation after Mr. Granier’s successor discovered that about $190 million in state funds was unaccounted for, the state government said this month — is that they came to light at all in a country where state and local corruption, a serious drag on Mexico’s development, run deep and are rarely exposed.¶ ¶ The case of Mr. Granier, who was taken into custody on June 14 at a Mexico City hospital where he is being treated for a heart ailment, is just the latest among several former governors and public officials who have recently found themselves under investigation or facing public scorn.¶ ¶ Watchdog groups are gaining strength, opposition parties are challenging and exposing the faults of the status quo, and social and traditional news media organizations are increasingly seeking to hold officials accountable.¶ ¶ “There will be more of these because the issue has taken off,” said Ricardo Corona, a public finance expert at the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, a research group in Mexico City. “There is encouragement on the issues of transparency, accountability, access to information.”¶ ¶ Mr. Granier’s case is one of the more closely followed political spectacles here in recent years.¶ ¶ By January, when the new government in his state, Tabasco, found holes in the budget, Mr. Granier, 65, had retreated into obscurity. This month, after public shock and outrage over the recording reached a fever pitch, he suddenly resurfaced on television, saying he was in Miami.¶ ¶ “I’m going back to Mexico,” he declared in an interview on one of Mexico’s most-watched morning shows, Primero Noticias. “I don’t owe absolutely anything.”¶ ¶ Upon his arrival at the airport in the capital the following day, a chaotic news media swarm engulfed Mr. Granier — at one point he stumbled before the cameras — before he was whisked away in a white S.U.V., with camera crews on motorcycles giving chase.¶ ¶ Three days later, the Tabasco state attorney’s office issued an arraignment order for Mr. Granier on suspicion of embezzlement and improper exercise of public service.¶ ¶ His treasurer, José Manuel Saiz, already had been arrested this month on suspicion of embezzlement as he tried to cross the border into the United States, after boxes containing nearly $7 million in unexplained cash were discovered on a property linked to him.¶ ¶ A decade ago, such suspicious accounting would have most likely been kept under wraps, as Mexican officials tended to protect one another and the public took their malfeasance for granted. During the uninterrupted 71-year rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, governors, who often secured their appointments based on friendly ties with the autocratic presidents, were almost expected to pillage state treasuries.¶ ¶ When the party lost the 2000 presidential election, it left a political vacuum across the states. Governors around the country acquired unprecedented autonomy and almost no oversight, said Alfonso Zárate, the president of Grupo Consultor Interdisciplinario, a political consulting firm in Mexico.¶ ¶ State debt rose to $30 billion in 2012 from about $15 billion in 2008, according to the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit. Accounting for inflation, that was a 70.4 percent increase, according to an article in the online publication Animal Político by Marco Cancino, a political analyst in Mexico City. Governments have reported scant details of how they have spent the money from these loans.¶ ¶ But with governors from opposing political parties succeeding one another and doing away with the unspoken pact of the PRI years, in which incoming leaders protected departing ones, a system of checks and balances — some have called it political retribution — is emerging.¶ ¶ Freedom of information laws, recent legislative overhauls demanding more accountability from state governments and an increasingly technologically engaged society have been more successful at preventing murky finances from going unquestioned.¶ ¶ As a result, tales of disgraced former governors are becoming a staple of the news here, and are part of what Mr. Zárate calls an “incipient democracy.”¶ ¶ In 2011, the federal attorney general’s office opened an investigation into a $3 billion debt in the state of Coahuila, acquired mostly during the administration of Humberto Moreira, a former president of the PRI, which recovered the presidency in December. The former governor of the state of Aguascalientes, Luis Armando Reynoso, is being investigated over improper exercise of public service, news organizations have reported.¶ ¶ Last year, Mario Ernesto Villanueva Madrid, the former governor of the state of Quintana Roo who was extradited to the United States in 2010, pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder millions of dollars in bribes he received from the powerful Juárez drug organization, to ensure that its cocaine moved safely through his state, undisturbed by law enforcement.¶ ¶ Inroads in transparency, however, have yet to change the culture and mentality of “El que no tranza, no avanza,” or “He who does not cheat, does not get ahead,” a popular motto here. And these victories have yet to transform the country’s image abroad: Mexico fell in Transparency International’s corruption perception index to 105th place in 2012 from 57th in 2002, with a lower ranking indicating that the country is seen as more corrupt.¶ ¶ “We still don’t have accountability,” said Mr. Cancino, the political analyst, who warned that progress in transparency practices at the federal level would slowly make their way down to the local and state levels. “There are still 32 battles that we have to wage,” he said, referring to Mexico’s 31 states and one federal district.¶ ¶ Small gains in transparency, seen through scandals like the one enveloping Mr. Granier, have not translated into justice served, experts say. Governors are investigated but rarely charged.¶ ¶ “We know what is going on,” said Sergio Aguayo, a political analyst at the Colegio de México. “But no measures are being taken.”¶ ¶ Mexicans who are active on Twitter discuss these scandals for days and sometimes weeks, shaming politicians and pressing traditional news media to cover them extensively. But political analysts argue that there are no effective mechanisms yet to translate citizen participation into structural change.¶ ¶ “What do we do so that society goes from indignation to action?” Mr. Cancino asked.¶ ¶ In the meantime, former politicians who endure public scrutiny and a dose of humiliation often come out of these scandals largely unscathed. In April, the newspaper Reforma reported that Mr. Moreira, the repudiated former Coahuila governor, was living with his family in an upscale neighborhood in Barcelona, Spain, while attending a local university.
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Zabludovsky, 2013-24 Horas Anchor---[Karla Zabludovsky, “Starting to Come to Light”, New York Times, 6-23-13, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/world/americas/official-corruption-in-mexico-once-rarely-exposed-is-starting-to-come-to-light.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0]
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Granier’s successor discovered that about $190 million in state funds was unaccounted for state and local corruption, a serious drag on Mexico’s development, run deep Saiz already had been arrested on suspicion of embezzlement ¶ State debt rose to $30 billion in 2012 from about $15 billion in 2008 that was a 70.4 percent increase Reynoso, is being investigated over improper exercise of public service the former governor of the state of Quintana Roo pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder millions of dollars in bribes received from the powerful Juárez drug organization
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Corruption kills the Mexican Economy
| 8,211 | 37 | 574 | 1,320 | 5 | 92 | 0.003788 | 0.069697 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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A 2005 World Bank study assessing some of the economic impacts from NAFTA on Mexico concluded that NAFTA helped Mexico get closer to the levels of development in the United States and Canada. The study states that NAFTA helped Mexican manufacturers to adopt to U.S. technological innovations more quickly and likely had positive impacts on the number and quality of jobs. Another finding was that since NAFTA went into effect, the overall macroeconomic volatility, or wide variations in the GDP growth rate, has declined in Mexico. Business cycles in Mexico, the United States, and Canada have had higher levels of synchronicity since NAFTA, and NAFTA has reinforced the high sensitivity of Mexican economic sectors to economic developments in the United States.24 Several economists have noted that it is likely that NAFTA contributed to Mexico’s economic recovery directly and indirectly after the 1995 currency crisis. Mexico responded to the crisis by implementing a strong economic adjustment program but also by fully adhering to its NAFTA obligations to liberalize trade with the United States and Canada. NAFTA may have supported the resolve of the Mexican government to continue with the course of market-based economic reforms, resulting in increasing investor confidence in Mexico. The World Bank study estimates that FDI in Mexico would have been approximately 40% lower without NAFTA.
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Villarreal, 10 M. Angeles Villarreal, specialist in International Trade and Finance, “NAFTA and the Mexican Economy”, 6/3/10, (http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34733.pdf)
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NAFTA helped Mexico get closer to the levels of development in the United States and Canada. NAFTA helped Mexican manufacturers to adopt to U.S. technological innovations more quickly and likely had positive impacts on the number and quality of jobs macroeconomic volatility, or wide variations in the GDP growth rate, has declined in Mexico. that NAFTA contributed to Mexico’s economic recovery directly and indirectly after the 1995 currency crisis. NAFTA may have supported the resolve of the Mexican government to continue with the course of market-based economic reforms, resulting in increasing investor confidence in Mexico. The World Bank study estimates that FDI in Mexico would have been approximately 40% lower without NAFTA.
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NAFTA is key to Mexico economy
| 1,397 | 30 | 736 | 217 | 6 | 112 | 0.02765 | 0.516129 |
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Last week, tens of thousands of poor Mexican farmers marched down Mexico City’s fancy Paseo de la Reforma demanding that Nafta be reversed, their cows and donkeys occasionally taking a nibble from the grass along the median strip. Florida’s sugar barons sent their lobbyists to Capitol Hill.¶ This shared outrage underscores how egalitarian free trade is: undermining inefficient producers who survive behind protective barriers, be they fabulously wealthy sugar producers in Florida or campesinos on tiny plots in Michoacán.¶ But despite their shared fears, the two sides of this divide will be affected by Nafta in very different ways. American sugar barons are right to be afraid. Free trade in sugar within North America will allow cheaper Mexican sugar to flood in, undercutting the government system of sugar supports, which guarantees farmers high prices and costs consumers about $1.5 billion a year. Mexico’s rural poor, even if they don’t believe it now, are likely to come out ahead.¶ Mexican farmers fear that a flood of cheap agricultural imports from the United States will take away their meager livelihoods, and end a centuries-old way of life revolving around small-scale farming of corn. Nafta has already shaken up Mexican farming — mostly for the better. The value of agricultural imports from the United States has doubled since 1994, when tariffs started to gradually decline. Imports of corn have more than doubled by volume.¶ But this isn’t displacing Mexico’s small-scale farmers. Most corn from the United States is used for feed and doesn’t compete with white corn farmed in Mexico. Mexican corn production is about a third higher than before Nafta came into effect. And cheap American corn is providing cheap feed to Mexico’s livestock farmers.¶ Mexico confronts a daunting challenge in dealing with rural poverty. One in five Mexicans depends on agriculture, and of those, a third live in extreme poverty. But farming corn on tiny plots will not provide the solution.¶ The Mexican government must revamp its own system of supports that now favors mainly big farmers, and provide small farmers with access to credit and know-how. Rural Mexico needs investment to increase yields and move out of corn and into more lucrative crops that are better suited to the country’s arid and mountainous terrain. And Nafta will help, providing a market for Mexican agricultural exports.¶ America’s sugar barons have been pressing hard to stop the opening of Nafta’s sugar trade. They first cut a deal with Mexico’s sugar barons that would have created a new system limiting trade in sugar and other sweeteners — a direct refutation of Nafta’s spirit and rules. Last week, the sugar lobby announced that it was dropping that idea. Yet the sugar support system is still in place in the United States — which means the government may have to start picking up the tab — and the fight isn’t over.¶ Opening up the sugar trade with Mexico will be good news for Americans: it will lead to lower sugar prices for everybody, from confectionary manufacturers to regular consumers. And Nafta will be good news for Mexico’s consumers and many of its farmers.¶ The political fight in Mexico isn’t over either. While the government will have to help some of its farmers adapt to a more competitive world, its main agricultural challenge is to keep food prices low to feed a growing urban population. It will also need to help more rural Mexicans find jobs outside agriculture. On all these fronts, Nafta is likely to help.
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Porter 8 (Eduardo Porter, Eduardo Porter writes the Economic Scene column for The New York Times. Formerly he was a member of The Times’ editorial board, where he wrote about business, economics, and a mix of other matters, 2/11/8, “NAFTA is a sweet deal, so why are they sour”, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/opinion/11mon4.html?_r=0)
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Mexican farmers fear that a flood of cheap agricultural imports from the United States will take away their meager livelihoods, Nafta has already shaken up Mexican farming — mostly for the better. The value of agricultural imports from the United States has doubled since 1994, when tariffs started to gradually decline. Imports of corn have more than doubled by volume.¶ this isn’t displacing Mexico’s small-scale farmers. Mexican corn production is about a third higher than before Nafta came into effect. And cheap American corn is providing cheap feed to Mexico’s livestock farmers. The Mexican government must revamp its own system of supports that now favors mainly big farmers, and provide small farmers with access to credit and know-how. Rural Mexico needs investment to increase yields into more lucrative crops Nafta will help, providing a market for Mexican agricultural exports.¶ America’s sugar barons have been pressing hard to stop the opening of Nafta’s sugar trade. Opening up the sugar trade with Mexico will be good news for Americans: it will lead to lower sugar prices for everybody, from confectionary manufacturers to regular consumers. And Nafta will be good news for Mexico’s consumers and many of its farmers.¶ While the government will have to help some of its farmers adapt to a more competitive world It will also need to help more rural Mexicans find jobs outside agriculture. On all these fronts, Nafta is likely to help.
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NAFTA benefits Mexican economy—imports
| 3,522 | 38 | 1,453 | 581 | 4 | 235 | 0.006885 | 0.404475 |
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The North American Free Trade Agreement, which went into effect in 1994, has been the key driver of Mexico's economic and social transformation of the past 20 years, analysts say.¶ NAFTA at first brought an explosion of low-skill-labor factories to the Mexican side of the U.S. border. By the mid-2000s, the trade pact had triggered an increasingly sophisticated manufacturing base that now reaches across Mexico's 31 states.¶ "What we're seeing now is a growth of industry in Mexico that requires more engineers," said Christopher Wilson, an associate with the Mexico Institute at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.¶ "To put a name on it, specifically, we're talking about automobiles and aerospace," Mr. Wilson said. "Mexico is now graduating more engineers than Germany every year."¶ A 40 percent jump in Mexico's per capita gross domestic product since the inception of NAFTA has brought with it an increasingly robust middle class.¶ "What that means is Mexicans are becoming more educated, and there is more investment in children, which is why you are able to see the development of an aerospace sector," Mr. Wilson said.¶ Poverty rate nearly halved¶ About 47 percent of Mexico's 115 million people live in poverty, down dramatically from the 80 percent rate half a century ago. Today, 98 percent of homes have electricity, and more than 4 million people study at the university level each year.
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Taylor ’12 – State Department Correspondent at The Washington Times, Editor at World Politics Review (Guy, “NAFTA key to economic, social growth in Mexico,” The Washington Times, 5/15/12, ProQuest)//ER
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North American Free Trade Agreement has been the key driver of Mexico's economic and social transformation of the past 20 years, analysts say.¶ the trade pact had triggered an increasingly sophisticated manufacturing base that now reaches across Mexico's 31 states.¶ What we're seeing now is a growth of industry in Mexico that requires more engineers we're talking about automobiles and aerospace Mexico is now graduating more engineers than Germany every year."¶ A 40 percent jump in Mexico's per capita gross domestic product since the inception of NAFTA has brought with it an increasingly robust middle class.¶ Mexicans are becoming more educated, and there is more investment in children, which is why you are able to see the development of an aerospace sector, Poverty rate nearly halved¶ About 47 percent of Mexico's 115 million people live in poverty, down dramatically from the 80 percent rate half a century ago. Today, 98 percent of homes have electricity, and more than 4 million people study at the university level each year.
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NAFTA drives Mexico’s economy – skilled labor and a growing middle class
| 1,437 | 72 | 1,040 | 230 | 12 | 168 | 0.052174 | 0.730435 |
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Mexico pursued passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement to increase foreign investment and create jobs -- something that has worked -- said Herminio Blanco, his country's chief negotiator for the landmark accord with the United States and Canada. "It all started in 1990 when President Carlos Salinas raised the idea for this," Blanco said Tuesday. "We began the negotiations in 1991, and the point was to bring investment to Mexico to create more jobs." The former minister of commerce and industry said the overall impact of NAFTA on Mexico has been positive. He said Mexico conducts $2 billion in trade each day with the world in great part because of NAFTA. He added that free trade also transformed Mexico into a global economic competitor. Since NAFTA was passed nearly 20 years ago, Mexico has done $160 billion worth of trade and Mexican companies have set up operations coast to coast in the United States.
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Valdez ’12 (Diana Washington Valdez, Senior reporter for the El Paso Times, “NAFTA helped Mexico”, February 8th El Paso Times in news section, LEXIS //NS)
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Mexico pursued passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement to increase foreign investment and create jobs -- something that has worked . "We began the negotiations in 1991, and the point was to bring investment to Mexico to create more jobs." The former minister of commerce and industry said the overall impact of NAFTA on Mexico has been positive. He said Mexico conducts $2 billion in trade each day with the world in great part because of NAFTA free trade also transformed Mexico into a global economic competitor. Since NAFTA was passed nearly 20 years ago, Mexico has done $160 billion worth of trade and Mexican companies have set up operations coast to coast in the United States
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Mexico loves NAFTA- helped them become a global trade competitor
| 925 | 65 | 694 | 156 | 10 | 119 | 0.064103 | 0.762821 |
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Since it came into force in 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement has become a centerpiece of U.S. policy toward the region, even though many of its original ambitions have been left unmet. Trade among the United States, Mexico and Canada, which has risen threefold since the agreement came into force, is currently estimated to support 14 million U.S. jobs. ¶ The free trade zone was also critical to Mexico’s development and its recent recovery after the 2007 crisis. In 2012, Mexico’s economic growth outpaced the one-time economic darling of the hemisphere, Brazil. Even more propitiously, Mexico exports more manufactured products, and not just to the U.S., than all other Latin American countries combined. Mexico’s access to the U.S. market has allowed Mexican manufacturers to build competencies in value-added production that they are now exploiting on the global market. ¶ But there is still much to do to deepen and improve NAFTA so that it can serve as a catalyst for broader development, such as spurring greater infrastructure investment along the border and throughout Mexico, and expanding and improving the energy networks among all three members. ¶ Deepening NAFTA will require presidential initiative. NAFTA has languished from suspicions over the agreement left over from before it was approved as well as lack of understanding of its potential. It has also fallen victim to the bureaucratic inertia of frequent technical meetings and summits that lack the necessary vision and executive commitment to really effect change. Now is the time to make the push to seize the economic and regional diplomatic potential of NAFTA.
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Sabatini 1/8 (Christopher Sabatini, Professor at Columbia and Director for Latin America at the National Endowment for Democracy with a PhD in Comparative Government and International Relations from the University of Virginia and a BS in Political Science and Government from Syracuse University, “In Latin America, Creative Focus Could Pay Off,” 8 January 2013, http://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/12609/in-latin-america-creative-focus-could-pay-off, AL)
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North American Free Trade Agreement has become a centerpiece of U.S. policy toward the region Trade which has risen threefold is currently estimated to support 14 million U.S. jobs. ¶ The free trade zone was also critical to Mexico’s development Even more propitiously, Mexico exports more manufactured products, and not just to the U.S., than all other Latin American countries combined. Mexico’s access to the U.S. market has allowed Mexican manufacturers to build competencies in value-added production that they are now exploiting on the global market.
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NAFTA key to Mexico’s manufacturing industry
| 1,650 | 44 | 556 | 263 | 6 | 86 | 0.022814 | 0.326996 |
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Nonetheless, closer cooperation on monetary policy among the three NAFTA countries would be desirable. To that end, we recommend that the Federal Reserve Board of Governors invite representatives of the Banco de Mexico and the Bank of Canada to participate in its key meet- ings—those where interest rate decisions are made—on a nonvoting basis. Reciprocal invitations should be forthcoming from the Banco de Mexico and the Bank of Canada. At the same time, the NAFTA partners could usefully coordinate their approaches to the regulation of financial services. Mexico has experienced a series of bank failures, while the collapse of Enron, Arthur Andersen, Global Crossing, and WorldCom, followed by a string of Wall Street and CEO scandals, starkly revealed the seamy underside of US finance. Canada has a cumbersome capital-market regulatory regime, which is run by the provinces.27 Mexico and the United States are both well along on their own cleanup acts, but more could be done in a North American con- text. In Canada, the trend toward harmonized securities regulation among the provinces is long overdue. A single national system would help even more.28 North American regulatory task forces should exchange views on the re- form of accounting standards and corporate governance. They could pro- vide a voice for convergent regulation of banks, insurance companies, securities firms, pension funds, mutual funds, and other asset management companies throughout North America. Mutual recognition of standards for issuing securities should command greater support, particularly in the Securities and Exchange Commission.29 If the NAFTA members agreed in principle to mutual recognition of federal standards, but not state or provin- cial standards, it would give a useful push to rationalization of the Cana- dian system.30
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Hufbauer and Schott 07 (Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Professor of International Finance and Director of ILaw at Georgetown; currently works for the US treasury organizing international trade and investment; Jeffrey J. Schott, senior research staff at Georgetown and member of the Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committee of the US government, “Recommendations for North American Economic Integration”, October 2007, https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/#inbox/13f2b0c7788bf2e8)
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At the same time, the NAFTA partners could usefully coordinate their approaches to the regulation of financial services Mexico has experienced a series of bank failures, while the collapse of Enron, Arthur Andersen, Global Crossing, and WorldCom, followed by a string of Wall Street and CEO scandals, starkly revealed the seamy underside of US finance Mexico and the United States are both well along on their own cleanup acts, but more could be done in a North American con- text. A single national system would help North American regulatory task forces should exchange views on the re- form of accounting standards and corporate governance. They could pro- vide a voice for convergent regulation of banks, insurance companies, securities firms, pension funds, mutual funds, and other asset management companies throughout North America Mutual recognition of standards for issuing securities should command greater support,
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Coordination between NAFTA is key to US Mexico economy
| 1,829 | 54 | 925 | 280 | 9 | 142 | 0.032143 | 0.507143 |
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A 2005 World Bank study assessing some of the economic impacts from NAFTA on Mexico ¶ concluded that NAFTA helped Mexico get closer to the levels of development in the United ¶ States and Canada. The study states that NAFTA helped Mexican manufacturers adapt to U.S. ¶ technological innovations more quickly and likely had positive impacts on the number and ¶ quality of jobs. Another finding was that since NAFTA went into effect, the overall ¶ macroeconomic volatility, or wide variations in the GDP growth rate, has declined in Mexico. ¶ Business cycles in Mexico, the United States, and Canada have had higher levels of synchronicity ¶ since NAFTA, and NAFTA has reinforced the high sensitivity of Mexican economic sectors to ¶ economic developments in the United States.54¶ Several economists have noted that it is likely that NAFTA contributed to Mexico’s economic ¶ recovery directly and indirectly after the 1995 currency crisis. Mexico responded to the crisis by ¶ implementing a strong economic adjustment program but also by fully adhering to its NAFTA ¶ obligations to liberalize trade with the United States and Canada. NAFTA may have supported the ¶ resolve of the Mexican government to continue with the course of market-based economic reforms, resulting in increasing investor confidence in Mexico. The World Bank study estimates ¶ that FDI in Mexico would have been approximately 40% lower without NAFTA.55¶ One of the main arguments in favor of NAFTA at the time it was being proposed by policymakers ¶ was that the agreement would improve economic conditions in Mexico and narrow the income ¶ gap between Mexico and the United States. Studies that have addressed the issue of economic ¶ convergence56 have noted that economic convergence in North America might not materialize ¶ under free trade as long as “fundamental differences” in initial conditions persist over time. One ¶ study argues that NAFTA is not enough to help narrow the disparities in economic conditions ¶ between Mexico and the United States and that Mexico needs to invest more in education; ¶ innovation and infrastructure; and in the quality of national institutions. The study states that ¶ income convergence between a Latin American country and the United States is limited by the ¶ wide differences in the quality of domestic institutions, in the innovation dynamics of domestic ¶ firms, and in the skills of the labor force.57 Another study also notes that the ability of Mexico to ¶ improve economic conditions depends on its capacity to improve its national institutions, adding ¶ that Mexican institutions did not improve significantly more than those of other Latin American ¶ countries during the post-NAFTA period.58¶ Mexican wages rose steadily from the early 1980s until the mid-1990s, when the currency crisis ¶ hit. After a drop in average real wages in 1996 of 15.5%, real wages increased steadily until 2000, ¶ when the average rate of growth was 11.8%. Since then the average rate of growth has only ¶ varied slightly. Mexico’s trade liberalization measures may have affected the ratio between skilled ¶ and non-skilled workers in Mexico. In 1988, the real average wage of skilled workers in Mexico’s ¶ manufacturing industry was 2.25 times larger than that of non-skilled workers. This ratio ¶ increased until 1996, when it was about 2.9, but then remained stable until 2000.59 The World ¶ Bank study found that NAFTA brought economic and social benefits to the Mexican economy, ¶ but that the agreement in itself was not sufficient to ensure a narrowing of the wage gap between ¶ Mexico and the United States. The study states that NAFTA had a positive effect on wages and ¶ employment in some Mexican states, but that the wage differential within the country increased ¶ as a result of trade liberalization.60
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Villarreal, 12- Specialist in International Trade and Violence (M. Angeles Villarreal, “US-Mexico Economic Relations: Trends, Issues, and Implications”, Published by congressional research service, published on August 9, 2012, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32934.pdf)//NG
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A 2005 World Bank study ¶ concluded that NAFTA helped Mexico get closer to the levels of development in the United ¶ States and Canada NAFTA helped Mexican manufacturers adapt to U.S. ¶ technological innovations ¶ since NAFTA went into effect, the ¶ wide variations in the GDP growth rate, has declined in Mexico ¶ Business cycles in Mexico, the United States, and Canada have had higher levels of synchronicity ¶ since NAFTA, ¶ ¶ NAFTA contributed to Mexico’s economic ¶ recovery directly and indirectly after the 1995 currency crisis Mexico responded by ¶ fully adhering to its NAFTA ¶ obligations to liberalize trade with the United States and Canada. NAFTA may have supported the ¶ resolve of the Mexican government to continue with the course of market-based economic reforms, resulting in increasing investor confidence in Mexico. The World Bank study estimates ¶ that FDI in Mexico would have been approximately 40% lower without NAFTA.55¶ NAFTA ¶ would improve economic conditions in Mexico and narrow the income ¶ gap between Mexico and the United States. ¶ ¶ ¶ ¶ ¶ ¶ ¶ ¶ ¶ ¶ ¶ ¶ Mexican wages rose steadily from the early 1980s until the mid-1990s, when the currency crisis ¶ hit. After a drop in average real wages in 1996 of 15.5%, real wages increased steadily until 2000, ¶ when the average rate of growth was 11.8%. ¶ ¶ ¶ ¶ ¶ NAFTA brought economic and social benefits to the Mexican economy, ¶ but that the agreement in itself was not sufficient to ensure a narrowing of the wage gap between ¶ Mexico and the United States. The study states that NAFTA had a positive effect on wages and ¶ employment in some Mexican states, ¶
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NAFTA has drastically helped Mexico’s Economy
| 3,821 | 45 | 1,641 | 628 | 6 | 289 | 0.009554 | 0.460191 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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3,069 |
Yes, you read that right.¶ While it’s old hat, if not a broken record, to deride NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement (remember Ross Perot and the “giant sucking sound?”) much good continues to emerge from the extraordinary cooperation between the three signatory countries.¶ In addition to burgeoning trade and cross-border investment that has resulted from the agreement’s full implementation, there’s exciting news of increasing collaboration and standardization of environmental regulations.¶ A number of new initiatives agreed upon by the parties will likely reduce gasoline consumption and air pollution, particularly along borders and coasts in the NAFTA region, according to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, which looks after and advocates for environmental issues and improvements within the region.¶ Indeed, the existence of cross-border organizations that arise as part and parcel, or as a result of trade negotiations, are an often overlooked benefit of trade and investment dialogue. When nations and regions have structures in place to address issues, propose solutions, fund studies, implement pilot projects and so on, good things can happen.¶ Now, I don’t expect many folks to wake up tomorrow and say, “You know, I really misjudged NAFTA. It’s a good thing after all,” never mind the abundant evidence of economic growth, competitiveness and supply chain integration that have contributed to a resurgence in N. American manufacturing.¶ But it would be nice if more people considered trade agreements in the fuller context of multilateral issues, even beyond trade. Harmonization of standards – which begins with dialogue – is a critical step on the path towards a business and investment environment that respects not only economic concerns, but important social objectives, as well.
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Newman 13—Writer for The Global Perspective (“Thank you, NAFTA … !”, July 15, 2013, http://globalperspective.bangordailynews.com/2013/07/15/home/thank-you-nafta/)//RT
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much good continues to emerge from the extraordinary cooperation between the three signatory countries In addition to burgeoning trade and cross-border investment that has resulted from the agreement’s full implementation, there’s exciting news of increasing collaboration and standardization of environmental regulations. according to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, which looks after and advocates for environmental issues and improvements within the region.¶ Indeed, the existence of cross-border organizations that arise as part and parcel, or as a result of trade negotiations, are an often overlooked benefit of trade and investment dialogue. really misjudged NAFTA. It’s a good thing after all,” never mind the abundant evidence of economic growth, competitiveness and supply chain integration that have contributed to a resurgence in N. American manufacturing.¶ But it would be nice if more people considered trade agreements in the fuller context of multilateral issues, even beyond trade. Harmonization of standards – which begins with dialogue – is a critical step on the path towards a business and investment environment that respects not only economic concerns, but important social objectives, as well.
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NAFTA is good – environment projects
| 1,824 | 36 | 1,231 | 275 | 6 | 177 | 0.021818 | 0.643636 |
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Unknown
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3,070 |
Anxiety No. 4: Free trade is destroying Latin America's environment.¶ Perception: Almost all businesses tend to degrade the environment. That stark fact is evident wherever industry is found. In places like Cubatão, Brazil's center of chemical production, the air is as thick as soup. Yet, it is notable that the worst polluters are Brazilian, not multinational, plants. As in smog-choked Mexico City or along the string of environmental-eyesore maquiladora (assembly facility) communities that dot the Mexican side of the U.S. border, much of the blame can be laid at the door of poor local planning, lax government policy, and economic need.¶ Banning international trade will not decontaminate the planet or stop global warming. Quite the contrary: if every country produced all and only the products it consumed, waste would be rife. International trade exists because of production efficiencies that are synonymous with conservation. But the environment's greatest enemy is poverty. People everywhere want to live in a healthier environment. Trade affords them the means to do so by raising their incomes. It remains a mystery why, in the words of a prominent Latin American, “[free-trade] protestors have come together to save the people of developing countries from development.”79 Moreover, multinational firms-the motors of international trade-tend to be environmentally cleaner than local firms because (a) their production technologies are designed for and attuned to global standards and (b) the developed-country consumers of their products are more likely to penalize environmental abusers.¶ Although some, especially unconstrained local, industries continue to despoil Latin America's environment, globalization’s counterforces are at work to slow the process. Indeed, trade and environmental goals often reinforce each other. Developed-country standards on pesticide residues, for example, are causing more and more “developing-country farmers…to respond by converting to organic production methods.”80 Breaking the myth that government is held hostage by powerful industries, Brazil is monitoring 15,000 Amazon cattle ranches by satellite to stop their expansion and further damage to the rain forest.81 Nestlê is an example of how global business can advance environmental well-being, having been described by former president Ricardo Lagos of Chile as “a model of corporate social responsibility.”82 The company's purchasing guidelines "give preference to integrated farming methods that preserve soil, water, air, energy and genetic diversity, and minimize waste.”83 Nestlé’s environmentally oriented production improvements reduced wastewater generation by 45 percent, water consumption by 26 percent, and greenhouse gases by 16 percent for each ton of product produced between 2001 and 2004.84 Enel plans to invest more than 4 billion euros in Latin America between 2009 and 2014, thus enabling it to “avoid the emission of over 4 million tons of CO2 a year” by developing renewable energy resources and building new plants.85 Ecuador's San Carlos sugar mill entered an international joint venture over 40 years ago to utilize its bagasse, a residue from processing sugarcane, as the fibrous raw material for paper pulp, thus preserving trees that would otherwise have to be cut for pulp. 86 San Carlos continued its quest for ecofriendly projects, spending more than $1 million in 2008 on sustainability projects, such as reforestation, lubricant recycling, and a closed-loop system that enabled it to reduce water usage by 315 cubic meters per hour. San Carlos spent more than $l.5 million on environmental projects in 2009.87
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Becker 11—Thomas H. Becker is an economic development authority and management trainer specializing in Latin America. He has lived, operated businesses, or worked in 16 Latin American countries, and currently serves as advisor to government agencies, private businesses, universities, and NGOs. His academic background includes degrees in Latin American American Studies and a Ph.D. in International Business. He has served on the Business faculty of five universities in the U.S. and Latin America, has written over 100 articles and book chapters in English and Spanish, and is a former President and Managing Director of the Business Association of Latin American Studies. [Becker, Thomas H.“Doing Business in the New Latin America: Keys to Profit in America’s Next-Door Markets”—2nd Edition.
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Almost all businesses tend to degrade the environment. That stark fact is evident wherever industry is found. In places like Cubatão, Brazil's center of chemical production, the air is as thick as soup. Yet, it is notable that the worst polluters are Brazilian, not multinational, plants. if every country produced all and only the products it consumed, waste would be rife. International trade exists because of production efficiencies that are synonymous with conservation. But the environment's greatest enemy is poverty. People everywhere want to live in a healthier environment. Moreover, multinational firms-the motors of international trade-tend to be environmentally cleaner than local firms because (a) their production technologies are designed for and attuned to global standards and (b) the developed-country consumers of their products are more likely to penalize environmental abusers. Breaking the myth that government is held hostage by powerful industries, Brazil is monitoring 15,000 Amazon cattle ranches by satellite to stop their expansion and further damage to the rain forest.81 Nestlê is an example of how global business can advance environmental well-being, having been described by former president Ricardo Lagos of Chile as “a model of corporate social responsibility.”82 The company's purchasing guidelines "give preference to integrated farming methods that preserve soil, water, air, energy and genetic diversity, and minimize waste.”
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Free Trade Helps Environment
| 3,649 | 28 | 1,465 | 542 | 4 | 213 | 0.00738 | 0.392989 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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3,071 |
Myth No. 5: NAFTA has done nothing to improve the environment. Fact: NAFTA created two binational institutions that certify and finance environmental infrastructure projects to provide a clean and healthy environment for residents along the U.S.-Mexico border. To date, they have provided nearly $1 billion for 135 environmental infrastructure projects with a total estimated cost of $2.89 billion and allocated $55.1 million in assistance and grants for over 450 other border environmental projects. The Mexican government has also made substantial new investments in environmental protection, increasing the federal budget for the environmental sector by 81 percent between 2003 and 2008.25
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Becker 11—Thomas H. Becker is an economic development authority and management trainer specializing in Latin America. He has lived, operated businesses, or worked in 16 Latin American countries, and currently serves as advisor to government agencies, private businesses, universities, and NGOs. His academic background includes degrees in Latin American American Studies and a Ph.D. in International Business. He has served on the Business faculty of five universities in the U.S. and Latin America, has written over 100 articles and book chapters in English and Spanish, and is a former President and Managing Director of the Business Association of Latin American Studies. [Becker, Thomas H.“Doing Business in the New Latin America: Keys to Profit in America’s Next-Door Markets”—2nd Edition. Pg 52]//MM
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NAFTA created two binational institutions that certify and finance environmental infrastructure projects to provide a clean and healthy environment for residents along the U.S.-Mexico border.
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Helped the environment—created organizations
| 692 | 44 | 191 | 100 | 4 | 25 | 0.04 | 0.25 |
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Since NAFTA took effect in 1994, Mexico has experienced important progress in the development and enforcement of its environmental legal and regulatory framework. The Law for the Use of Renewable Energy and For the Financing of Energy Transition includes a specific target of 35% of non-fossil fuels electricity production by 2018. According to the National Energy Strategy 2013-2027 this target implies the installation of 18,000 MW at a competitive level.
Mexico faces substantial environmental challenges and the market for environmental technologies is growing at a 6% rate annually, and it is worth over $2 billion.
Due to many environmental factors (pollution, rising costs of fuels, decreasing prices in clean energy, and global warming), Mexico is moving towards a greener future and is seeking to become a world leader in tackling climate change.
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Canadian Government News 7/20 ( “Cleantech Mission to Mexico September 2013” //LEXIS //NS)
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Since NAFTA took effect in 1994, Mexico has experienced important progress in the development and enforcement of its environmental legal and regulatory framework The Law for the Use of Renewable Energy and For the Financing of Energy Transition includes a specific target of 35% of non-fossil fuels electricity production by 2018 the market for environmental technologies is growing at a 6% rate annually, and it is worth over $2 billion Mexico is moving towards a greener future and is seeking to become a world leader in tackling climate change.
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NAFTA helps the environment-renewables
| 857 | 39 | 547 | 132 | 4 | 89 | 0.030303 | 0.674242 |
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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3,073 |
Anxiety No. 2: Globalization makes the poor poorer.¶ Perception: Globalization produces losers as well as winners. Among the winners are the world's poorest. As globalization has advanced in recent decades, global poverty rates have retreated. At the same time, however, inequalities in income, within and between countries, have risen.65 This latter reality has spawned much of the sentiment against globalization.¶ Yet, by subordinating deliverance from poverty to parity in poverty, does the antiglobalization movement build a better world?¶ Nicholas Stern, former vice president and chief economist of the World Bank, summarizes the effect of globalization on the poor:¶ Some anxieties about globalization are well-founded, but reversing globalization would come at an intolerably high price, destroying prospects of prosperity for many millions of poor people. We do not agree with those who would retreat into a world of nationalism and protectionism. That way leads to deeper poverty and it is fundamentally hostile to the well-being of people in developing countries. Instead, we must make globalization work for the poor people of the world. 66
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Becker 11—Thomas H. Becker is an economic development authority and management trainer specializing in Latin America. He has lived, operated businesses, or worked in 16 Latin American countries, and currently serves as advisor to government agencies, private businesses, universities, and NGOs. His academic background includes degrees in Latin American American Studies and a Ph.D. in International Business. He has served on the Business faculty of five universities in the U.S. and Latin America, has written over 100 articles and book chapters in English and Spanish, and is a former President and Managing Director of the Business Association of Latin American Studies. [Becker, Thomas H.“Doing Business in the New Latin America: Keys to Profit in America’s Next-Door Markets”—2nd Edition. Pg 36]//MM
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Globalization produces losers as well as winners. Among the winners are the world's poorest. As globalization has advanced in recent decades, global poverty rates have retreated. by subordinating deliverance from poverty to parity in poverty, does the antiglobalization movement build a better world?¶ reversing globalization would come at an intolerably high price, destroying prospects of prosperity for many millions of poor people. We do not agree with those who would retreat into a world of nationalism and protectionism. That way leads to deeper poverty and it is fundamentally hostile to the well-being of people in developing countries.
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Even if globalization is bad, the alternative is far worse
| 1,153 | 58 | 645 | 173 | 10 | 97 | 0.057803 | 0.560694 |
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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3,074 |
OTTAWA, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Canada voiced concern on Wednesday about "protectionist outbursts" from the United States if that country were to pull out of the NAFTA trade agreement as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are threatening. The two Democratic presidential candidates said in a debate on Tuesday that they would opt out of NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, unless certain environmental and labor standards were renegotiated. "I've been very concerned for a couple of years now. The rhetoric of protectionism has been creeping, it's been getting more strident, it's permeating Congress, protectionist groups are flexing their muscle," Canadian International Trade Minister David Emerson told a crush of reporters. "And it's not just the heat of the election campaign that's causing concern." Emerson said that if the United States left NAFTA, which also includesMexico, he did not envisage it suddenly erecting large tariff barriers. But he did see the possibility of long-standing disputes erupting again and not being easily settled. "The biggest risk is that there will be periodic outbursts of protectionist sentiment. It may be softwood lumber one day, it may be beef another day. The real risk is that you lose the ability to resolve these disputes in a relatively neutral and objective way," he said. Canada has run substantial trade surpluses with the United States under NAFTA -- for 2007 it was C$85.2 billion ($86.9 billion at current exchange rates) -- but Emerson dismissed this as "simply an accounting outcome". He said inputs and outputs from manufacturing plants go both ways, and he pointed out that Canada is the largest supplier of energy to the United States "and NAFTA has been the foundation of integrating the North American energy market." The Conservative minister, a former lumber company executive, predicted the United States will not pull out of NAFTA. "I think sound, wise judgment will prevail at the end of the day," he said. Liberal Member of Parliament John McCallum, a former bank economist, said he was concerned about protectionist sentiment among some Democrats. "If the U.S. were to pull out of NAFTA it would be a catastrophe for Canada," he said.
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Palmer 8- Staff Writer for Reuters (Randall “Canada concerned about protectionism if NAFTA dies”, February 27,2008, http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/02/27/idUSN27455425)//RT
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protectionist outbursts" from the United States if that country were to pull out of the NAFTA The rhetoric of protectionism has been creeping, it's been getting more strident, it's permeating Congress, protectionist groups are flexing their muscle ." Emerson said that if the United States left NAFTA, which also includesMexico, he did not envisage it suddenly erecting large tariff barriers. But he did see the possibility of long-standing disputes erupting again and not being easily settled. there will be periodic outbursts of protectionist sentiment The real risk is that you lose the ability to resolve these disputes in a relatively neutral and objective way "If the U.S. were to pull out of NAFTA it would be a catastrophe for Canada,"
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Collapse of NAFTA causes protectionism
| 2,208 | 39 | 743 | 356 | 5 | 120 | 0.014045 | 0.337079 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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3,075 |
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been in effect since January 1994. ¶ There are numerous indications that NAFTA has achieved many of the intended trade and ¶ economic benefits as well as incurred adjustment costs. This has been in keeping with what most ¶ economists maintain, that trade liberalization promotes overall economic growth among trading partners, but that there are significant adjustment costs. ¶ Most of the trade effects in the United States related to NAFTA are due to changes in U.S. trade and investment patterns with Mexico. At the time of NAFTA implementation, the U.S.-Canada ¶ Free Trade Agreement already had been in effect for five years, and some industries in the United ¶ States and Canada were already highly integrated. Mexico, on the other hand, had followed an ¶ aggressive import-substitution policy for many years prior to NAFTA in which it had sought to ¶ develop certain domestic industries through trade protection. One example is the Mexican ¶ automotive industry, which had been regulated by a series of five decrees issued by the Mexican ¶ government between 1962 and 1989. The decrees established import tariffs as high as 25% on automotive goods and had high restrictions on foreign auto production in Mexico. Under NAFTA, Mexico agreed to eliminate these restrictive trade policies.
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Villarreal, 12- Specialist in International Trade and Violence (M. Angeles Villarreal, “US-Mexico Economic Relations: Trends, Issues, and Implications”, Published by congressional research service, published on August 9, 2012, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32934.pdf)//NG
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There are numerous indications that NAFTA has achieved many of the intended trade and ¶ economic benefits trade liberalization promotes overall economic growth among trading partners Most of the trade effects in the United States related to NAFTA are due to changes in U.S. trade and investment patterns with Mexico Mexico had followed an ¶ aggressive import-substitution policy prior to NAFTA in which it had sought to ¶ develop certain domestic industries through trade protection decrees established import tariffs as high as 25% Under NAFTA, Mexico agreed to eliminate these restrictive trade policies.
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NAFTA has Increased Trade Between the US and Mexico
| 1,344 | 51 | 606 | 217 | 9 | 93 | 0.041475 | 0.428571 |
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Since NAFTA, the automotive, textile, and apparel industries have experienced some of the more noteworthy changes in trading patterns, which may also have affected U.S. employment in these industries. U.S. trade with Mexico has increased considerably more than U.S. trade with other countries, and Mexico has become a more significant trading partner with the United States since NAFTA implementation. ¶ In the automotive industry, the industry comprising the most U.S. trade with Mexico, NAFTA ¶ provisions consisted of a phased elimination of tariffs, the gradual removal of many non-tariff ¶ barriers to trade including rules of origin provisions, enhanced protection of intellectual property ¶ rights, less restrictive government procurement practices, and the elimination of performance ¶ requirements on investors from other NAFTA countries. These provisions may have accelerated ¶ the ongoing trade patterns between the United States and Mexico. Because the United States and ¶ Canada were already highly integrated, most of the trade impacts on the U.S. automotive industry ¶ relate to trade liberalization with Mexico. Prior to NAFTA Mexico had a series of government ¶ decrees protecting the domestic auto sector by reserving the domestic automobile market for ¶ domestically produced parts and vehicles. NAFTA established the removal of Mexico’s restrictive ¶ trade and investment policies and the elimination of U.S. tariffs on autos and auto parts. By 2006, ¶ the automotive industry has had the highest dollar increase ($41 billion) in total U.S. trade with ¶ Mexico since NAFTA passage.
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Villarreal, 12- Specialist in International Trade and Violence (M. Angeles Villarreal, “US-Mexico Economic Relations: Trends, Issues, and Implications”, Published by congressional research service, published on August 9, 2012, http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL32934.pdf)//NG
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Since NAFTA, the automotive, textile, and apparel industries have experienced some of the more noteworthy changes in trading patterns, which may also have affected U.S. employment in these industries U.S. trade with Mexico has increased considerably more than U.S. trade with other countries, and Mexico has become a more significant trading partner with the United States since NAFTA implementation ¶ In the automotive industry, the industry comprising the most U.S. trade with Mexico, NAFTA ¶ provisions consisted of a phased elimination of tariffs, ¶ ¶ ¶ ¶ ¶ ¶ Prior to NAFTA Mexico had a series of government ¶ decrees protecting the domestic auto sector ¶ NAFTA established the removal of Mexico’s restrictive ¶ trade and investment policies and the elimination of U.S. tariffs on autos and auto parts. By 2006, ¶ the automotive industry has had the highest dollar increase ($41 billion) in total U.S. trade with ¶ Mexico since NAFTA passage.
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NAFTA increased trade between US and Mexico- specific industries listed
| 1,601 | 71 | 947 | 243 | 10 | 153 | 0.041152 | 0.62963 |
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The economic vitality of the U.S.-Mexico border region—which includes manufacturing, ¶ infrastructure, human capital and tourism, among other elements—is a key part of this overall ¶ economic success. With more than a billion dollars of commercial traffic crossing the border ¶ each day, it is literally at the U.S.-Mexico border region where “the rubber hits the road” in ¶ terms of this expanded regional trade. This is because more than 70% of total binational ¶ commerce passes through the border region via trucks. This already massive truck traffic is ¶ expected to increase significantly in the coming decades (see Figure 1 below). Since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, total trade ¶ between the two countries has more than quintupled, and goods and services trade is now at a ¶ half trillion dollars per year. An estimated six million U.S. jobs and probably even more Mexican ¶ jobs depend on bilateraltrade.2
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Lee and Wilson 12- Associate at the Mexico Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, (Erik Lee and Christopher E. Wilson, “The State of Trade, Competitiveness, and Economic Well-Being in the US-Mexico Border Region”, published by the North American Center for Transborder Studies, published in June 2012, http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/State_of_Border_Trade_Economy_0.pdf)//NG
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The economic vitality of the U.S.-Mexico border region is a key part of this overall ¶ economic success. 70% of total binational ¶ commerce passes through the border Since North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, total trade ¶ between the two countries has more than quintupled, and goods and services trade is now at a ¶ half trillion dollars per year. An estimated six million U.S. jobs and probably even more Mexican ¶ jobs depend on bilateraltrade.2
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NAFTA has quintupled Trade between US and Mexico
| 956 | 48 | 457 | 156 | 8 | 78 | 0.051282 | 0.5 |
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Unknown
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3,078 |
NAFTA SUCCESS: ENVIRONMENTAL TEST¶ OF THE NEW MEXICAN DEMOCRACY¶ Some media and academic writing during the past decade has chroni-¶ cled both the opening of Mexico's economy and the simultaneous shift¶ to effective suffrage and more open government. The consensus has¶ been that the two types of openings-political and economic-must¶ operate in tandem for both to be successful. The NAFTA experience¶ shows that the integration of trade and environmental policies oper-¶ ates under the same principle. The transparency that is needed in gov-¶ ernment to optimize economic policies is the same transparency¶ needed to optimize environmental policies. Transparency, in turn, em-¶ powers the public by holding government accountable for its actions.¶ The emerging role of NGOs during NAFTA negotiations and imple-¶ mentation set a precedent not only for Canadian and U.S. groups but¶ also most importantly for Mexican groups, whose political influence at¶ the domestic level had been more limited before trade negotiations be-¶ gan. Since NAFTA implementation, Mexican environmental groups have¶ been more involved in both domestic and trilateral decisionmaking on¶ trade and economic policy issues-issues that would have been beyond¶ the scope of most Mexican environmentalists before 1990. However,¶ the scope of Mexican NGO participation in domestic trade policies is¶ not as broad as it is in the United States or Canada. For example, Cana-¶ dian and U.S. environmental organizations are represented on federal¶ trade policy advisory committees that serve trade negotiators.¶ New Institutions Empower Mexican NGOs¶ NAFTA provided two institutions in which public participation tends¶ to push the three parties into greater transparency and accountability¶ for environmental actions. The institution that affects citizens in all¶ three countries is the CEC, which was established under the NAAECF¶ The other institution, the Border Environment Cooperation Commis-¶ sion (BECC), affects only the U.S. and Mexican publics.¶ The NAAEC reinforced public participation and principles of trans-¶ parency and the right of public access to information about govern-¶ ment operations by setting out obligations for all three signatories in¶ these areas. These obligations helped to provide the conditions for¶ Mexican NGOs to change their relationships to their federal govern-¶ ment. The agreement emphasized transparency and public participa-¶ tion by providing opportunities for NGOs to comment on a broad range of proposed laws, regulations, procedures, and administrative¶ rulings in each country. It promoted public access to information by¶ setting out detailed procedures that the public could use to air com-¶ plaints about a governments failure to enforce its own environmental¶ laws and by instituting cooperative efforts with Mexico to develop a¶ broad-based emissions inventory that would be available to the Mexi-¶ can public.¶ The agreement also contained other, indirect pressures on the three¶ federal governments to expand the scope of the environmental infor-¶ mation made publicly available. For example, article 10 of the NAAEC¶ encouraged the CEC Council, which consists of thc environmental¶ ministers from each country, to promote the exchange of information¶ on criteria and methodologies used in establishing domestic environ-¶ mental standards, to promote public awareness of environmental is-¶ sues, and to establish a process for developing recommendations on¶ greater compatibility of environmental technical regulations, stan-¶ dards, and conformity assessment procedures? Article 13 makes provi-¶ sion for most CEC reports to be issued to the public in draft form so¶ that individual citizens or NGOs may comment on them. Other parts¶ of the agreement emphasized that council reports should be made pub-¶ lic and that council proceedings must be transparent.
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Gilbreath and Ferretti ‘4 – Gilbreath was a secior associate of the CSIS, currently serves as an international policy specialist for the US EPA, Ferretti is the chief of the environment division of the Inter-American Development Bank (Jan and Janine, “Mixing Environment and Trade Policies under NAFTA,” Chapter 4 of “NAFTA’s Impact on North America: The First Decade,” edited by Sidney Weintraub, published 2004, CSIS)//ER
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media and academic writing during the past decade has chroni-¶ cled both the opening of Mexico's economy and the simultaneous shift¶ to effective suffrage and more open government the integration of trade and environmental policies oper-¶ ates under the same principle. The transparency that is needed in gov-¶ ernment to optimize economic policies is the same transparency¶ needed to optimize environmental policies. Transparency, in turn, em-¶ powers the public by holding government accountable for its actions.¶ The emerging role of NGOs during NAFTA negotiations and imple-¶ mentation set a precedent not only for Canadian and U.S. groups but¶ also most importantly for Mexican groups Mexican environmental groups have¶ been more involved in both domestic and trilateral decisionmaking NAFTA provided two institutions in which public participation tends¶ to push the three parties into greater transparency and accountability¶ for environmental actions The agreement emphasized transparency and public participa-¶ tion by providing opportunities for NGOs to comment on a broad range of proposed laws, regulations, procedures, and administrative¶ rulings in each country. It promoted public access to information by¶ setting out detailed procedures that the public could use to air com-¶ plaints about a governments failure to enforce its own environmental¶ laws and by instituting cooperative efforts with Mexico to develop a¶ broad-based emissions inventory that would be available to the Mexi-¶ can public Other parts¶ of the agreement emphasized that council reports should be made pub-¶ lic and that council proceedings must be transparent.
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NAFTA solves the environment and democracy in Mexico
| 3,882 | 53 | 1,649 | 569 | 8 | 242 | 0.01406 | 0.425308 |
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3,079 |
By "opening” its domestic economy under NAFTA, Salinas had also¶ opened Mexican society to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),¶ MNCS, and international organizations, which brought information,¶ new political values, and support for the domestic polity." Salinas had¶ aimed to implement "perestroika without glasnost," but his govern-¶ ment soon discovered it is "much harder to maintain a political wall¶ when the social and economic walls are coming down" (Pastor 1993,¶ 24). Mexico's civil society had been slowly developing from the late¶ 1960s, but with NAFTA and the changes of the early 1990s, its civil soci-¶ ffty began to become a viable and coherent force for the first time in his-¶ tory (Bilello 1996; Fox and Hernandez 1992). Through increasing¶ international contacts, Mexico’s civil society and international NGOs¶ began pressing the state for serious political reforms related to environ-¶ ment, human rights, and democratic elections. As the international¶ C0mmunity was also paying close attention to Mexico's internal affairs after NAFTA, Salinas, and his successor Ernesto Zedillo, could no longer ignore such pressures. The Mexican state had to begin redefining its¶ Standards of legitimacy, so that its sovereignty was being transformed from a "national sovereignty" to a "constitutional sovereignty," even if¶ Salinas and Zedillo did not recognize this process.¶ The most striking example of this change can be seen in Mexico’s adoption of democratic reforms. Before NAFTA, the government of Mexico refused to accept any type of international interference into¶ Mexico, or from any other country, especially with respect to its polit-¶ ical system. When the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights¶ (IACHR) ruled that Mexico had to reform its electoral practices, the¶ Mexican representative responded if a state allowed an international¶ body to rule on the legality of its electoral procedures, "[that] state¶ would cease to be sovereign." He added that by passing judgment on¶ electoral processes, the IACHR was intervening in the state's sovereign¶ affairs (OAS 1990, especially 543-61). Nonetheless, the IACHR ruled¶ the Mexican government had ratified without reservation the treaties¶ of the American Convention on Human Rights, which established the¶ right to vote, and thus the Mexican government was responsible for the¶ protection of these rights." Growing concern about Mexico's human¶ rights situation had also led Salinas in Iune 1990 to establish the Na-¶ tional Commission on Human Rights, which happened to be just days¶ before Salinas was to meet with George H. W. Bush to discuss NAFTA¶ (Lutz 1993).
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Robinson ‘4 – professor of international relations and US foreign policy at the Insituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico (James, “NAFTA and Sovereignty,” Chapter 13 of “NAFTA’s Impact on North America: The First Decade,” edited by Sidney Weintraub, published 2004, CSIS)//ER
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By "opening” its domestic economy under NAFTA, Salinas had also¶ opened Mexican society to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs),¶ MNCS, and international organizations, which brought information,¶ new political values, and support for the domestic polity." with NAFTA and the changes of the early 1990s, its civil soci-¶ ffty began to become a viable and coherent force for the first time in his-¶ tory Mexico’s civil society and international NGOs¶ began pressing the state for serious political reforms related to environ-¶ ment, human rights, and democratic elections. As the international¶ C0mmunity was also paying close attention to Mexico's internal affairs after NAFTA, Salinas, and his successor Ernesto Zedillo, could no longer ignore such pressures. The Mexican state had to begin redefining its¶ Standards of legitimacy, so that its sovereignty was being transformed from a "national sovereignty" to a "constitutional sovereignty," The most striking example of this change can be seen in Mexico’s adoption of democratic reforms. Before NAFTA, the government of Mexico refused to accept any type of international interference into¶ Mexico the IACHR ruled¶ the Mexican government had ratified without reservation the treaties¶ of the American Convention on Human Rights, which established the¶ right to vote, and thus the Mexican government was responsible for the¶ protection of these rights." Growing concern about Mexico's human¶ rights situation had also led Salinas in Iune 1990 to establish the Na-¶ tional Commission on Human Rights
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NAFTA made Mexico democratic
| 2,651 | 29 | 1,552 | 398 | 4 | 230 | 0.01005 | 0.577889 |
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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3,080 |
NAFTA also produced good results in two other fronts: macroeco-¶ nomic convergence and "cementing" market reforms in Mexico. With¶ regard to macroeconomic convergence, locking the prices of domestic¶ goods to international prices provided a favorable context for prudent¶ [fiscal and monetary policies (table l5.3).¶ A recent development of great relevance for the future of energy¶ markets in North America is the increase of Mexico's imports of natural¶ gas, due to insufficient investment in Mexico and the substantial in-¶ crease in demand as a result of the gradual development of distribution¶ infrastructure and, more important, the shift to gas-burning thermo-¶ electrical plants for environmental reasons. It is estimated that in 2006¶ of the total electricity generated in Mexico, 47.9 percent will be based in¶ natural gas ( as compared with only 17.6 percent in 1996), most of it¶ imported from Canada through the United States (table l5.4).¶ Table 15.3. Macroeconomic Convergence¶ 1993 2003¶ Measure Canada Mexico U.S Canada Mexico¶ Fiscal deficit¶ (percentage¶ of GDP) -5.9 -0.7 -3.8 -0.9 -0.5¶ Inflation¶ (percent change¶ in consumer¶ price index) 1.8 8.0 2.7 2.9 4.4¶ Interest rate¶ (percentage of¶ one-month¶ Treasury bill) 4.8 15.5 3.0 3.3 7.3¶ Exchange rate¶ (yearly percent-¶ age depreciation) 5.8 4.6 n.s. -10.2 3.2¶ Monetary¶ expansion 8.2 7.3 10.2 7.7 11.5¶ Sources: Grupo de Economistas y Asociados. based on data from Instituto Nacional de Estadistica¶ Geogralia e Informatica; U.S. Bureau of the Census; and Statistics Canada¶ In addition to the direct and obvious economic benefits deriving¶ from free trade, there are other noneconomic advantages. First, there is¶ a correlation, somewhat contested but nevertheless significant, be-¶ tween the opening of markets and the development of democratic re-¶ gimes. This has been a clear trend over the past decade, both in Eastern¶ Europe and Latin America. In theory, free trade and free markets¶ stimulate market forces, enhance economic opportunities, increase¶ available information to society, constrain bureaucratic discretion in¶ decisionmaking, and make politicians and officials more accountable¶ to domestic and international actors. By doing these things, free trade¶ should contribute to democratic practices. Free trade is not the main¶ driving force behind democratization. But under certain circumstances,¶ it does facilitate and stimulate the process of democratic change and¶ consolidation.
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Reyes-Heroles ‘4 – president of Structura, a Mexican consulting firm, cofounder and executive president of the Grupo de Economistas y Asociados, was ambassador of Mexico to the United States from October 1997 to November 2000, was secretary of energy in President Ernesto Zedillo’s Cabinet (Jesus F, “North American Integration: A Spontaneous or a Driven Enterprise?” from chapter 15 of “NAFTA’s Impact on North America: The First Decade,” edited by Sidney Weintraub, published 2004, CSIS)//ER
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NAFTA produced good results in macroeco-¶ nomic convergence and "cementing" market reforms in Mexico In addition to the direct and obvious economic benefits deriving¶ from free trade, there are other noneconomic advantages there is¶ a correlation be-¶ tween the opening of markets and the development of democratic re-¶ gimes. This has been a clear trend over the past decade free trade and free markets¶ stimulate market forces, enhance economic opportunities, increase¶ available information to society, constrain bureaucratic discretion in¶ decisionmaking, and make politicians and officials more accountable¶ to domestic and international actors it does facilitate and stimulate the process of democratic change and¶ consolidation.
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NAFTA solves the economy and democratic reform
| 2,479 | 46 | 735 | 365 | 7 | 104 | 0.019178 | 0.284932 |
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3,081 |
WASHINGTON— I once bragged to a friend in Mexico that in the United States we know the winner of a presidential election within minutes after the polls close. That was nothing, he replied. "Here in Mexico we know almost a year before."¶ On Sunday the joke may be on the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which has ruled Mexico by hook or by crookfor seven decades. Francisco Labastida, its presidential candidate, is running neck and neck with Vicente Fox of the National Action Party (PAN).¶ Next week the PRI may need its mapaches, the so-called devious raccoons who tamper with the votes. Or it can hope that Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, the third major candidate in the race, will be the spoiler by siphoning off more than 15 percent of the votes, mostly from Mr. Fox.¶ But no matter who wins the election, democracy wins. Mexico will finally have a vibrant multiparty system with an opposition Congress, an independent judiciary and a free press — developments that would have been unthinkable only six years ago when President Carlos Salinas won approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement, the groundbreaking treaty with the United States and Canada.¶ Because of NAFTA, the whole world will be watching to see that the elections are conducted fairly. It's a good thing.¶ When Mr. Fox drew even in the polls, Mr. Labastida exchanged his "softly, softly" approach for the more familiar PRI tactics of vote-buying and coercion. He also called in the old guard, known popularly as the dinosaurs, led by former Interior Minister Manuel Bartlett. Mr. Bartlett was accused of faking a computer crash to steal the 1988 presidential election from Mr. Cárdenas and deliver it to Mr. Salinas and the PRI.¶ Two years earlier, when polls showed that a PAN candidate for governor of Chihuahua was leading by 3 to 1, the PRI manufactured a victory for its man. Mr. Bartlett explained that a PAN win would open the door to the historic enemies of Mexico — the church, the United States and the business community. So if there was fraud, he said, it was patriotic fraud.¶ Because of NAFTA, Mexico can now afford the luxury of democracy. Inflation is relatively low, commercial banks are on their way to recovery and foreign debt is under control. With an export-led growth strategy, commerce between the United States and Mexico has expanded by more than 150 percent to dollars 220 billion last year¶ In 1998, Mexico replaced Japan (which has an economy 11 times its size) as the No. 2 trading partner with America. In less than 10 years it will be número uno, replacing Canada. It has free trade arrangements with 28 other countries, including those in the European Union. Given its history as a protectionist economy, this is an extraordinary turnabout.¶ These economic changes are affecting every aspect of life. Within five years Mexican women will average two children, a sign of a growing middle class. In 1975 women had a fertility rate of six.¶ New prosperity, zero population growth and fewer job seekers will reduce the flow of illegal immigrants to the United States.¶ But Mexico still has a long way to go. Forty percent of its population lives on less than dollars 2 a day. Corruption and violence have gone from bad to worse. The Zapatista uprising in the remote southern border state of Chiapas remains unresolved. And Mexico's multi-billion-dollar narco-trade with its addicted neighbor to the north is a powerful destabilizing force.¶ But because of NAFTA, these problems will be addressed democratically. The¶ next president will not be oneof the new breed of authoritarian-style leaders who have taken over in half a dozen Latin American countries. These autocratic so-called populists, who have assumed power through the ballot box, are ultra-nationalistic, militaristic and impatient with the niceties of constitutional law.¶ If the United States wants to do more than pay lip service in encouraging democracy in Central and South America, it should negotiate an American Free Trade Agreement that extends all the way from Canada to Argentina.¶ President Salinas remarked after the NAFTA vote: "For the first time ever, Mexico has a deadline for becoming more efficient. There is no more mañana." Starting on July 2, Mexican democracy will not have to wait for tomorrow, either.¶ The writer, who lived and worked in Mexico for more than 20 years, is founder and chairman of Business Executives for National Security, an organization of U.S. business leaders. He contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.
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Weiss 00 (Stanley A. Weiss, June 28, 2000, Stanley A. Weiss was formerly Chairman of American Premier, Inc., a mining, refractories, chemicals and mineral processing company. He is Founding Chairman of Business Executives for National Security (BENS), a nonpartisan organization of senior executives who use the best practices of business to strengthen the nation’s security, “Mexico After NAFTA Becomes A New Home for Democracy”, http://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/28/opinion/28iht-edstan.t_0.html)
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no matter who wins the election, democracy wins. Mexico will finally have a vibrant multiparty system with an opposition Congress, an independent judiciary and a free press — developments that would have been unthinkable only six years ago when President Carlos Salinas won approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement Because of NAFTA, the whole world will be watching to see that the elections are conducted fairly. It's a good thing.¶ when polls showed that a PAN candidate for governor of Chihuahua was leading by 3 to 1, the PRI manufactured a victory for its man. Because of NAFTA, Mexico can now afford the luxury of democracy. Inflation is relatively low, commercial banks are on their way to recovery and foreign debt is under control. With an export-led growth strategy, commerce between the United States and Mexico has expanded by more than 150 percent to dollars 220 billion last year¶ Mexico still has a long way to go. Forty percent of its population lives on less than dollars 2 a day. Corruption and violence have gone from bad to worse. But because of NAFTA, these problems will be addressed democratically. If the United States wants to do more than pay lip service in encouraging democracy in Central and South America, it should negotiate an American Free Trade Agreement that extends all the way from Canada to Argentina.¶
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NAFTA allows for problems to be solved democratically
| 4,541 | 53 | 1,351 | 751 | 8 | 228 | 0.010652 | 0.303595 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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3,082 |
The trade agreement allowed for the free flow of fruits and vegetables between the US, Canada and Mexico. There have undoubtedly been winners and losers on both sides. Among the losers: Florida’s fresh tomato growers.¶ The state produces the most fresh tomatoes in the nation. But growers there say the free trade agreement has slowly bled their industry. And now, tomato growers, like Bob Spencer, are fighting back.¶ At Spencer’s packing operation – for his company West Coast Tomato in the city of Palmetto – we watch as thousands of Roma tomatoes roll by every minute on big leather belts. Spencer pointed out cameras that were taking photos of each tomato.¶ Tomatoes were dropping off into different chutes, then seconds later, streams of nearly identical green tomatoes plopped into 25-pound cardboard boxes, bound for the Northeast and Canada. (Having uniform boxes ensures they’ll be ripe at the same time.)¶ On a typical day, West Coast Tomato packages about 750,000 pounds of tomatoes. Impressive, no doubt, but they’re running about a half million pounds below capacity. Spencer says their problems began shortly after NAFTA was signed some two decades ago.¶ “And what’s happened is the acreage in Florida has dropped as the competition from Mexico has had a dampening impact on our prices,” said Sepncer. “A lot of the people that I would go to conventions with 20 years ago are no longer here.”¶ According to the US Department of Agriculture, fresh tomato production in Florida has fallen 41 percent since NAFTA went into effect. Meanwhile tomato production in Mexico has gone the other way. Florida tomato growers argue they can’t compete with the lower wages and less environmental oversight in Mexico.¶ Florida growers were concerned when NAFTA was first signed and tariffs on imported tomatoes were dropped. But Spencer said they knew NAFTA’s passage was inevitable, so they lobbied for as much enforcement as they could get. That included a 1996 deal that set a minimum price for imported tomatoes.¶ “Little did we know that the enforcement we bargained for was really not going to be any enforcement at all. The end result is we had Barney for our policeman; we didn’t have Andy.”¶ For those of you under a certain age, that’s a reference to the Andy Griffith Show. Spencer’s point: enforcement of imported tomatoes has been weak. So, Spencer and other fresh tomato growers are asking the Department of Commerce to rip up the 1996 minimum price deal. That would then free them up to seek duties on imported Mexican tomatoes.¶ Workers make final checks for impurities as tomatoes roll by at West Coast Tomato. (Photo: Jason Margolis)¶ Florida growers say the old agreement sets the base price too low and hasn’t been updated appropriately to reflect current prices. And further, they accuse the Mexican growers of dumping tomatoes below cost, also known as predatory pricing, to run them out of business.¶ “One of the tenets of American trade law for the last 50 years has been, you can ship into this country, you can ship in at costs below our costs. But you can’t ship in at costs below your costs of production,” said Spencer.
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PRI’s The World 2012—PRI’s The World is a one-hour, weekday radio news magazine offering a mix of news, features, interviews, and music from around the globe. Launched in 1996, PRI’s The World, a co-production of WGBH/Boston, Public Radio International, and the BBC World Service, airs weekdays on over 300 stations across North America. [“NAFTA 20 Years After: Florida’s Tomato Growers Struggling”, December 17, 2012. http://www.theworld.org/2012/12/nafta-20-years-after-floridas-tomato-growers-struggling/]//MM
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The trade agreement allowed for the free flow of fruits and vegetables between the US, Canada and Mexico. Among the losers: Florida’s fresh tomato growers.¶ The state produces the most fresh tomatoes in the nation. But growers there say the free trade agreement has slowly bled their industry. they’re running about a half million pounds below capacity. Spencer says their problems began shortly after NAFTA was signed some two decades ago.¶ “And what’s happened is the acreage in Florida has dropped as the competition from Mexico has had a dampening impact on our prices,” said Sepncer. “A lot of the people that I would go to conventions with 20 years ago are no longer here. Florida growers were concerned when NAFTA was first signed and tariffs on imported tomatoes were dropped. But Spencer said they knew NAFTA’s passage was inevitable, so they lobbied for as much enforcement as they could get. That included a 1996 deal that set a minimum price for imported tomatoes. Spencer and other fresh tomato growers are asking the Department of Commerce to rip up the 1996 minimum price deal. That would then free them up to seek duties on imported Mexican tomatoes.¶ “One of the tenets of American trade law for the last 50 years has been, you can ship into this country, you can ship in at costs below our costs. But you can’t ship in at costs below your costs of production,”
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NAFTA kills Florida Tomatoes—Increases Mexican competition
| 3,148 | 58 | 1,378 | 528 | 6 | 239 | 0.011364 | 0.452652 |
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3,083 |
Modern-day slavery continues to exist in Florida. Barry Estabrook notes in his recently published book “Tomatoland” that, “In the last fifteen years, Florida law enforcement officials have freed more than one thousand men and women who have been held and forced to work against their will in the fields of Florida, and that represents only the tip of the iceberg. Most instances of slavery go unreported.”¶ There is a solution to these egregious violations of human rights in our state. A Florida-based organization, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, recently earned the Anti-Slavery Award from Anti-Slavery International in London for its efforts to expose and to end slavery in Florida agriculture. Major corporations, including Taco Bell, McDonald’s and Trader Joe’s, have joined the CIW’s Campaign for Fair Food, which has led to the first enforceable code of conduct joining consumers, growers and purchasers of Florida produce together to ensure that agricultural workers are treated fairly and paid regularly for their labor.¶ Unfortunately, a major purchaser of Florida tomatoes, Publix Super Markets, continues to ignore the pleas of religious leaders and Florida consumers to join the growing list of firms that have pledged to abolish exploitation and slavery in our fields. By claiming that it bears no responsibility for the conditions of the men and women who pick the crops that help generate enormous profits, Publix ignores the wishes of its customers who have been petitioning the company for more than two years.¶ On this newest Emancipation Day, we should pledge to take up Garnet’s call to fight for universal human rights and for the brotherhood of the entire human race regardless of occupation, racial background or nationality. It is up to us to honor the spirit of May 20 in Florida.
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Ortiz 2012—Paul Oritz is an associate professor of history and affiliated faculty for Latin American studies and African-American studies at UF. [“Emancipation Day should be reminder to keep fighting slavery”, May 22, 2012. http://www.alligator.org/opinion/columns/article_4fbfc3fe-a3bb-11e1-a1e2-0019bb2963f4.html]//MM
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Modern-day slavery continues to exist in Florida. In the last fifteen years, Florida law enforcement officials have freed more than one thousand men and women who have been held and forced to work against their will in the fields of Florida, and that represents only the tip of the iceberg. Most instances of slavery go unreported.” a major purchaser of Florida tomatoes, Publix Super Markets, continues to ignore the pleas of religious leaders and Florida consumers to join the growing list of firms that have pledged to abolish exploitation and slavery in our fields. By claiming that it bears no responsibility for the conditions of the men and women who pick the crops that help generate enormous profits we should pledge to take up Garnet’s call to fight for universal human rights and for the brotherhood of the entire human race regardless of occupation, racial background or nationality. It is up to us to honor the spirit of May 20
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Floridian Tomatoes use slave production. Reject them in order to fight racism and promote human rights—It’s a D rule
| 1,811 | 117 | 940 | 290 | 19 | 160 | 0.065517 | 0.551724 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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3,084 |
It’s a good example of the boom in free trade. In 2011, Mexico sent about 2.8 billion pounds of tomatoes into the U.S. That’s more than triple what they exported in 1993, the year before NAFTA began: 800 million pounds. The numbers grew across the board.¶ Steven Zahniser is an economist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He said in 1993, Mexico's total imports to the U.S. were valued at $2.7 billion. In 2011, they totaled $15.8 billion. They grew heading south, as well. U.S. agricultural exports to Mexico increased from $3.6 billion to $18.3 billion over the same period.¶ Traditionally, Mexican tomato growers targeted the West Coast market, and Florida the East Coast. But in recent years, with cheaper and more efficient shipping, Mexico tomatoes are now available everywhere. And this is how businessmen in Mexico like Fisher did it.
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Marizco 2012—Senior Field Correspondent Michel Marizco (Tucson) has reported along the Southwest border for the past decade, most of that in Arizona and Sonora. Before joining the Fronteras Desk, he produced stories in the field for CNN Madrid, the BBC, 60 Minutes Australia, and the CBC. His work now focuses on transnational trafficking syndicates, immigration, federal law enforcement, etc. [“The Tomato Trade Wars”, September 17, 2012. http://www.fronterasdesk.org/content/tomato-trade-wars]//MM
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, Mexico sent about 2.8 billion pounds of tomatoes into the U.S. That’s more than triple what they exported in 1993 The numbers grew across the board Traditionally, Mexican tomato growers targeted the West Coast market, and Florida the East Coast. But in recent years, with cheaper and more efficient shipping, Mexico tomatoes are now available everywhere.
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Specifically, increases in efficiency are key to crush Floridian tomatoes
| 849 | 73 | 356 | 141 | 10 | 57 | 0.070922 | 0.404255 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
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Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
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The trade agreement allowed for the free flow of fruits and vegetables between the US, Canada and Mexico. There have undoubtedly been winners and losers on both sides. Among the losers: Florida’s fresh tomato growers.¶ The state produces the most fresh tomatoes in the nation. But growers there say the free trade agreement has slowly bled their industry. And now, tomato growers, like Bob Spencer, are fighting back.¶ At Spencer’s packing operation – for his company West Coast Tomato in the city of Palmetto – we watch as thousands of Roma tomatoes roll by every minute on big leather belts. Spencer pointed out cameras that were taking photos of each tomato. “That picture is then sent up to these computers and it’s making a determination of the size and color of the tomato.”¶ Tomatoes were dropping off into different chutes, then seconds later, streams of nearly identical green tomatoes plopped into 25-pound cardboard boxes, bound for the Northeast and Canada. (Having uniform boxes ensures they’ll be ripe at the same time.)¶ On a typical day, West Coast Tomato packages about 750,000 pounds of tomatoes. Impressive, no doubt, but they’re running about a half million pounds below capacity. Spencer says their problems began shortly after NAFTA was signed some two decades ago.¶ “And what’s happened is the acreage in Florida has dropped as the competition from Mexico has had a dampening impact on our prices,” said Sepncer. “A lot of the people that I would go to conventions with 20 years ago are no longer here.”¶ According to the US Department of Agriculture, fresh tomato production in Florida has fallen 41 percent since NAFTA went into effect. Meanwhile tomato production in Mexico has gone the other way. Florida tomato growers argue they can’t compete with the lower wages and less environmental oversight in Mexico.¶ Florida growers were concerned when NAFTA was first signed and tariffs on imported tomatoes were dropped. But Spencer said they knew NAFTA’s passage was inevitable, so they lobbied for as much enforcement as they could get. That included a 1996 deal that set a minimum price for imported tomatoes.¶ “Little did we know that the enforcement we bargained for was really not going to be any enforcement at all. The end result is we had Barney for our policeman; we didn’t have Andy.”¶ For those of you under a certain age, that’s a reference to the Andy Griffith Show. Spencer’s point: enforcement of imported tomatoes has been weak. So, Spencer and other fresh tomato growers are asking the Department of Commerce to rip up the 1996 minimum price deal. That would then free them up to seek duties on imported Mexican tomatoes. Florida growers say the old agreement sets the base price too low and hasn’t been updated appropriately to reflect current prices. And further, they accuse the Mexican growers of dumping tomatoes below cost, also known as predatory pricing, to run them out of business.¶ “One of the tenets of American trade law for the last 50 years has been, you can ship into this country, you can ship in at costs below our costs. But you can’t ship in at costs below your costs of production,” said Spencer.
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Margolis ’12 – Boston-based reporter who regularly files stories throughout the U.S. and abroad about politics, economics, immigration issues, and environmental matters (Jason, “NAFTA 20 Years After: Florida’s Tomato Growers Struggling,” The PRI’s World: Global Perspectives for an American Audience, 12/17/12, http://www.theworld.org/2012/12/nafta-20-years-after-floridas-tomato-growers-struggling/)//ER
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. Among the losers: Florida’s fresh tomato growers growers there say the free trade agreement has slowly bled their industry. they’re running about a half million pounds below capacity. Spencer says their problems began shortly after NAFTA was signed some two decades ago fresh tomato production in Florida has fallen 41 percent since NAFTA went into effect. Florida growers were concerned when NAFTA was first signed and tariffs on imported tomatoes were dropped. But Spencer said they knew NAFTA’s passage was inevitable, so they lobbied for as much enforcement as they could get. enforcement of imported tomatoes has been weak That would then free them up to seek duties on imported Mexican tomatoes. Florida growers say the old agreement sets the base price too low and hasn’t been updated appropriately to reflect current prices. And further, they accuse the Mexican growers of dumping tomatoes below cost, also known as predatory pricing, to run them out of business. “One of the tenets of American trade law for the last 50 years has been, you can ship into this country, you can ship in at costs below our costs. But you can’t ship in at costs below your costs of production,” said Spencer.
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NAFTA hurts Floridian tomato farmers
| 3,158 | 37 | 1,198 | 533 | 5 | 201 | 0.009381 | 0.377111 |
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But Florida tomato producer Jim Grainger, owner of the Taylor & Fulton Packing Company, asks: What about him? He said that the federal government needs to stand behind American growers. “I don’t want to see a foreign country put us out of business,” said Grainger. “They (the federal government) helped the car manufacturers in Detroit for the same reason, or comparable reasons. And we’re just looking for the same treatment. I mean we’re not Detroit, we’re Florida. And we don’t want to be put out of business by the Mexicans or the Canadians. We want to still be in the business of feeding the United States of America, period.”¶ Graninger added for good measure: His tomatoes are better than the Mexicans ones.¶ “I don’t think they’ll ever be better than ours in the state of Florida.”¶ Another Florida tomato grower I met said the remaining tomato producers can handle two or three more bad seasons, then they’ll all be gone. And if that happens, he said, fresh tomato production in Florida will be gone forever.¶ Then, he warns, we’ll all be eating Mexican tomatoes, no matter which country’s tomatoes we actually prefer.
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Margolis ’12 – Boston-based reporter who regularly files stories throughout the U.S. and abroad about politics, economics, immigration issues, and environmental matters (Jason, “NAFTA 20 Years After: Florida’s Tomato Growers Struggling,” The PRI’s World: Global Perspectives for an American Audience, 12/17/12, http://www.theworld.org/2012/12/nafta-20-years-after-floridas-tomato-growers-struggling/)//ER
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“I don’t want to see a foreign country put us out of business We want to still be in the business of feeding the United States of America Another Florida tomato grower I met said the remaining tomato producers can handle two or three more bad seasons, then they’ll all be gone. And if that happens, he said, fresh tomato production in Florida will be gone forever. Then, he warns, we’ll all be eating Mexican tomatoes, no matter which country’s tomatoes we actually prefer.
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NAFTA kills Florida tomato production
| 1,127 | 37 | 473 | 192 | 5 | 84 | 0.026042 | 0.4375 |
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NAFTA has been considered the triggering mechanism of the new¶ U.S.-Mexican understanding in the realm of drugs. The trade agree-¶ ment, according to this view, had a "spillover effect" that initiated a¶ learning process whereby greater trust and shared commitments “per-¶ mitted the design and implementation of subsequent agreements ....¶ The scope of agreements widened beyond trade matters to encompass¶ other issue areas" (Dominguez and Fernandez de Castro 2001, 2, 3).¶ NAFTA did, in fact, influence many decision on both sides of the¶ border, as it became a paramount interest for the two countries. Avoid-¶ ing conflict with the United States and establishing a reputation as a re-¶ liable partner were certainly part of the Mexican realignment strategy.¶ Salinas's decision to initiate a far-reaching rapprochement with the¶ United States, of which NAFTA would become the centerpiece, provid-¶ ed a favorable context to begin Mexican accommodation to U.S. preferences. lt also made the realignment politically more palatable in¶ Mexico.¶ NAFTA created many expectations in Mexico and the United States;¶ among others, that formalizing agreements and finally coming to¶ terms with the realities of two highly intertwined economies and societ-¶ ies would launch both countries into a new era of international cooper-¶ ation that best reflected the major changes in the international system¶ and held the promise of protecting Mexico from U.S. unilateralism.
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Toro ‘4 – professor-researcher of international relations at El Colegio de Mexico (Colmex) and was the director of the Centro de Estudio Internacionales from 1997 to 2002 at Colmex, served as editor of the international relations quarterly Foro Internacional, author (Maria Celia, “Mexican Policy Against Drugs: From Deterring to Embracing The United States,” from chapter 8 of “NAFTA’s Impact on North America: The First Decade,” edited by Sidney Weintraub, published 2004, CSIS)//ER
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NAFTA has been considered the triggering mechanism of the new¶ U.S.-Mexican understanding in the realm of drugs. trade agree-¶ ment, according to this view, had a "spillover effect" that initiated a¶ learning process whereby greater trust and shared commitments “per-¶ mitted the design and implementation of subsequent agreements ....¶ The scope of agreements widened beyond trade matters to encompass¶ other issue areas" NAFTA did, in fact, influence many decision on both sides of the¶ border, as it became a paramount interest for the two countries. Avoid-¶ ing conflict with the United States and establishing a reputation as a re-¶ liable partner were certainly part of the Mexican realignment strategy.¶ NAFTA would become the centerpiece, provid-¶ ed a favorable context to begin Mexican accommodation to U.S. preferences. lt also made the realignment politically more palatable in¶ Mexico.¶ formalizing agreements and finally coming to¶ terms with the realities of two highly intertwined economies and societ-¶ ies would launch both countries into a new era of international cooper-¶ ation that best reflected the major changes in the international system¶ and held the promise of protecting Mexico from U.S. unilateralism.
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Cooperation over NAFTA spills over to solve for drug trafficking cooperation
| 1,466 | 76 | 1,234 | 221 | 11 | 186 | 0.049774 | 0.841629 |
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One solution to the lack of health care professionals is through the TN visa from Mexico.¶ NAFTA TN1 Visas are valid for 3 years offering stability to the Medical Staffing Industry.¶ They are available as part of the NAFTA treaty which allows professionals to work between the 3 countries...USA, Canada and Mexico with a relatively easy, fast and painless visa process. International nurse recruitment for American and Canadian employers really does offer a very good option which allows for foreign nurse recruitment from Mexico.¶ Mexican nurses need to have NCLEX, CFGNS (optional), Visa Screen and IELTS to be able to get a visa and legally work in USA which offers excellent options for staffing solutions within the medical staffing industry.¶ The Overseas recruitment Association have recruited over 60 nurses from Mexico and have a database of other professionals including healthcare professionals, therapists, physicians, doctors, Licenses practical nurses, registered nurses, pediatric and other clinical, health care and medical occupations.¶ The NAFTA agreement is one of the best overseas nursing recruitment options for International nurse recruitment agencies.¶ Nursing in particular is in short supply in America, solutions do exist for finding staff. Travel nursing, care professionals, locum, nurse staffing services, health care services etc can all benefit from the NAFTA agreement TN1 Visas, the staffing solutions do exist if we can get the word out to the medical establishments that would benefit.¶ A list of jobs that could be filled by the TN Visa is available from the site too, these include engineers, architects, doctors and many other professions. The NAFTA agreement opened up possibilities to recruit RN Nurses that many employers, staffing services and recruiters still haven't heard or learned about.¶ The recent extension from renewable 1 year visas to 3 year visas has made it even more attractive as a solution for the chronic shortage of health and other professionals in the USA and Canada.¶ With the H-1B program now a limited option to recruit foreign nurses and being so problematic as a legal vehicle to bring in skilled and experienced RN nurses, there really is no other opportunity for those that are willing to take action to find quality foreign nurses and other professionals from Mexico.
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Hayes 2009—Anthony Michael Hayes is a worker for the Overseas Recruitment Association. [“Medical Staffing Through TN Visas (NAFTA) & Recruitment of Nurses From Abroad”, April 10, 2009. http://ezinearticles.com/?Medical-Staffing-Through-TN-Visas-(NAFTA)-and-Recruitment-of-Nurses-From-Abroad&id=2206000]//MM
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One solution to the lack of health care professionals is through the TN visa from Mexico valid for 3 years offering stability to the Medical Staffing Industry International nurse recruitment for American and Canadian employers really does offer a very good option which allows for foreign nurse recruitment from Mexico The NAFTA agreement is one of the best overseas nursing recruitment options for International nurse recruitment agencies.¶ Nursing in particular is in short supply in America, solutions do exist for finding staff. With the H-1B program now a limited option to recruit foreign nurses and being so problematic as a legal vehicle to bring in skilled and experienced RN nurses, there really is no other opportunity for those that are willing to take action to find quality foreign nurses and other professionals from Mexico.
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TN Visas solve US nursing shortage—H1B can’t solve
| 2,338 | 50 | 839 | 367 | 8 | 134 | 0.021798 | 0.365123 |
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Consider the threat of bioterrorism: the potential use of biological weapons against this country raises the specter of a unique kind of war in which battles will be fought not against soldiers and artillery but against epidemics. Without significant reform to ensure access to health care for all Americans, the US will be unable to fight such battles effectively.¶ Why Access?¶ Using infectious diseases as weapons, bioterrorism threatens to weaken the civilian workforce and, hence, a nation's ability to go about its daily business. Moreover, in the case of diseases that are transmissible person to person, each infected individual becomes a human weapon, infecting others, who then infect others, and so on, tying up medical responders and overwhelming medical resources.¶ A nation's greatest defense against bioterrorism, both in preparation for and in response to an attack, is a population in which an introduced biological agent cannot get a foothold, ie, healthy people with easy access to health care.¶ Yet, in spite of spending significantly more per capita on health care than any other developed nation, the US is peppered with communities in which many people have little or no access to health care. This may be due to a lack of adequate health insurance—a fact of life for over 43 million demographically diverse Americans—or to cultural barriers that inhibit proper utilization of available services, or to inadequate distribution of health professionals and services. These communities are more vulnerable to infectious diseases [4] and therefore might be considered the nation's Achilles' heal in a bioterrorism attack.
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Green 2004—Shane K. Green is Program Leader in Ethical, Social and Cultural (ESC) Program for Global Health, Sandra Rotman Centre, University Health Network and University of Toronto. [“Bioterrorism and Health Care Reform: No Preparedness Without Access.” American Medical Association Journal of Ethics. Virtual Mentor. May 2004. Vol. 6 No. 5]//MM
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Consider the threat of bioterrorism: the potential use of biological weapons against this country raises the specter of a unique kind of war in which battles will be fought not against soldiers and artillery but against epidemics the US will be unable to fight such battles effectively A nation's greatest defense against bioterrorism, both in preparation for and in response to an attack, is a population in which an introduced biological agent cannot get a foothold, ie, healthy people with easy access to health care. the US is peppered with communities in which many people have little or no access to health care. This may be due to inadequate distribution of health professionals and services. These communities are more vulnerable to infectious diseases [4] and therefore might be considered the nation's Achilles' heal in a bioterrorism attack.
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Nurses key to prevent outbreak in a bioterror attack
| 1,640 | 52 | 852 | 255 | 9 | 137 | 0.035294 | 0.537255 |
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An underlying, if un-enunciated, goal of NAFTA was the immobilization of Mexican labor - the desire and intent that Mexicans would, through the operation of NAFTA, have a greater economic incentive to remain behind the Mexico-United States border, thus breaking (or, at the very least, significantly decreasing) the cycle of seasonal trans-border movement to the United States. n95 With respect to labor, the purpose of NAFTA is to impose labor immobility through economic development, not to liberalize labor. The expectations of the governments of the NAFTA member states were that higher levels of foreign direct investment and consequent job creation in Mexico, together with upward equalization of wages, would stem immigration of low-skilled labor to the United States. n96 As a result, NAFTA does not provide for the liberalization [*93] of labor and allows for the movement of skilled labor only. n97 For example, through the introduction of the Trade NAFTA (TN) visa in the United States, which includes an application process that may be more stringent and arduous for Mexican applicants, skilled labor from Mexico and Canada may seek temporary trans-border employment in the United States. n98 However, NAFTA does not create unfettered rights of nationals of member states to enter the labor market of another member state. n99
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Bravo 2008—Karen, Associate Professor of Law, Indiana University. [“THE CHANGING TIDE OF TRADE: THE SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPLICATIONS OF REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS: ARTICLE: REGIONAL TRADE ARRANGEMENTS AND LABOR LIBERALIZATION: (LOST) OPPORTUNITIES FOR EXPERIMENTATION?”, 28 St. Louis U. Pub. L. Rev. 71. lexis]//MM
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An underlying, goal of NAFTA was the immobilization of Mexican labor the purpose of NAFTA is to impose labor immobility through economic development, not to liberalize labor. The expectations of the governments of the NAFTA member states were that higher levels of foreign direct investment would stem immigration of low-skilled labor to the United States. NAFTA does not provide for the liberalization ] of labor and allows for the movement of skilled labor only. NAFTA does not create unfettered rights of nationals of member states to enter the labor market of another member state.
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The skilled labor requirement undermines the liberalization of NAFTA
| 1,338 | 68 | 585 | 210 | 9 | 94 | 0.042857 | 0.447619 |
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3,091 |
The U.S. should immediately promote the global standardization of a GATS visa system to lower the costs of temporary labor movement[125] and help visitors feel secure enough to conduct business without fear of deportation or permanent incarceration. Although security and privacy concerns may hinder development of a streamlined visa or passport program,[126] governments must rationally weigh the costs and benefits.¶ The U.S. and its partners must also ensure that further development of free trade policy include measures that favor labor mobility. Embracing the free movement for work would be a brilliant opportunity for the U.S. to restart the currently stalled Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations. More specifically, developed countries should allow low-skilled workers to move from developing countries. Artificial barriers to entry should be reduced, fees eliminated, and paperwork streamlined, to the fullest extent possible. Finally, the U.S. should publicly reject and abandon its arbitrary detention policy and reinstate America as a refuge and place of opportunity for the world's tired and poor.¶ Rationally weighing the benefits from our new cross-border security measures, against the potential gains from increased services, trade, and increased labor mobility, reason dictates favoring the latter at the expense of the former. If the 1994 Oklahoma City bombing by native sons Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols taught us anything, it is that agents of terrorism can be homegrown just as well as foreign. Keeping every foreigner out will not prevent terrorist acts against the U.S. mainland. Accordingly, the lesson of our post-September 11 security environment is that agency coordination and intelligence are more effective-and far more efficient-than expensive, brute force countermeasures.¶ Finally, the U.S. and the rest of the developing world should consider increasing labor mobility as a means to prevent terrorism. More mobility means greater integration and greater equalization. Ultimately, a greater mutual understanding and a diminished drive towards terrorism should flow from a more interconnected world.
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Walters 2006—Ryan Walters (King Hall Class of 2005) served as Senior Technical Editor of the UC Davis Business Law Journal for the 2004-2005 academic year. [“Managing Global Mobility; Free Trade in Services in the Age of Terror.” 6 U.C. Davis Bus. L.J. 15 (2006). http://blj.ucdavis.edu/archives/vol-6-no-2/Managing-Global-Mobility.html]//MM
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The U.S. should immediately promote the global standardization of a GATS visa system to lower the costs of temporary labor movement and help visitors feel secure enough to conduct business without fear of deportation or permanent incarceration The U.S. and its partners must also ensure that further development of free trade policy include measures that favor labor mobility. Embracing the free movement for work would be a brilliant opportunity for the U.S. to restart the currently stalled Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations. developed countries should allow low-skilled workers to move from developing countries. Artificial barriers to entry should be reduced, fees eliminated, and paperwork streamlined, to the fullest extent possible. Finally, the U.S. should publicly reject and abandon its arbitrary detention policy and reinstate America as a refuge and place of opportunity for the world's tired and poor , the U.S. and the rest of the developing world should consider increasing labor mobility as a means to prevent terrorism. More mobility means greater integration and greater equalization. , a greater mutual understanding and a diminished drive towards terrorism should flow from a more interconnected world.
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Liberalization solves terror and restarts FTAA negotiations
| 2,146 | 59 | 1,233 | 314 | 7 | 187 | 0.022293 | 0.595541 |
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Between 1994 and 2003, Canada’s economy had average annual growth rates of ¶ 3.6%, compared with 3.3% in the U. S. and 2.7% in Mexico. The Canadian government notes ¶ that employment since NAFTA has shown steady gains, with overall employment rising ¶ from 14.9 million to 15.7 million in the early 2000s. Last year, employment stood at 18.1 ¶ million. ¶ Since the implementation of the original Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in 1989, ¶ two-way trade has tripled. Under NAFTA, growth in bilateral trade between Canada and the ¶ U.S. has averaged 6% annually over the past decade. In 2007, the federal government said ¶ bilateral trade in goods and services was C$597 billion, with more than C$1.7billion worth ¶ of goods and services crossing the border every day.¶ In a recent speech in Boston, Canada’s Ambassador to the U.S., Michael Wilson, ¶ outlined the significant impact NAFTA and the earlier Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement ¶ have had on the Canadian economy.“Since the Canada–U.S. Free Trade Agreement was signed in 1988, there’s no doubt ¶ that our bilateral trade has been the key to growth,” he said. “During those 20 years, ¶ Canada–U.S. trade has more than tripled, from C$225 billion to C$720 billion. Investment ¶ flows have also increased substantially.”¶ Not only, he said, is Canada the biggest export market for U.S. products — more than ¶ China, Japan, the U.K. and Germany combined —Canada ranked No. 1 in 36 states.¶ Canada's trade with the U.S. is equivalent to 53% of Canadian GDP. The U.S. receives ¶ about 80% of Canadian exports while the U.S. ships about 20% of its exports to Canada. ¶ As Ambassador Wilson pointed out, Canada and the U.S. have also one of the world's ¶ largest investment relationships. The U.S. is the largest foreign investor in Canada and the ¶ most popular destination for Canadian investment. In 2006, U.S. direct investment in ¶ Canada was worth more than US$241 billion while Canadian direct investment in the U.S. ¶ was close to C$224 billion and C$4.4 billion in Mexico. In 2006, the U.S. and Mexico direct ¶ investment in Canada reached 61% of the total C$449 billion invested in Canada from ¶ foreign investors.¶ The Canadian government notes that most cross-border shipments move without ¶ problems. There are notable exceptions such as softwood, but Canada insists both the ¶ World Trade Organization and NAFTA dispute settlement processes can handle most ¶ issues.¶ Canada remains the U.S.’s largest trading partner, at least for the moment. The U.S. ¶ Census said that in January this year that Canada-U.S. trade for the month was US$46.7 ¶ billion, followed by China with $32 billion and Mexico with US$28.9 billion.¶
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Canadian- American Business Council 8- The Premier Voice of the Canadian American Business Community (“The economic benefits of NAFTA”, April 2008, http://canambusco.org/resources/TheEconomicBenefitsofNAFTA.pdf)//RT
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Between 1994 and 2003, Canada’s economy had average annual growth rates of ¶ 3.6%, compared with 3.3% in the U. S. and 2.7% in Mexico employment since NAFTA has shown steady gains, with overall employment rising ¶ from 14.9 million to 15.7 million in the early 2000s Under NAFTA, growth in bilateral trade between Canada and the ¶ U.S. has averaged 6% annually over the past decade the federal government said ¶ bilateral trade in goods and services was C$597 billion, with more than C$1.7billion worth ¶ of goods and services crossing the border every day Canada–U.S. trade has more than tripled, from C$225 billion to C$720 billion. Investment ¶ flows have also increased substantially.”¶ Not only, he said, is Canada the biggest export market for U.S. products Canada ranked No. 1 in 36 states.¶ Canada's trade with the U.S. is equivalent to 53% of Canadian GDP. The U.S. receives ¶ about 80% of Canadian exports while the U.S. ships about 20% of its exports to Canada. ¶ As Ambassador Wilson pointed out, Canada and the U.S. have also one of the world's ¶ largest investment relationships. The U.S. is the largest foreign investor in Canada and the ¶ most popular destination for Canadian investment. U.S. direct investment in ¶ Canada was worth more than US$241 billion The Canadian government notes that most cross-border shipments move without ¶ problems .¶ Canada remains the U.S.’s largest trading partner, at least for the moment. The U.S. ¶ Census said that in January this year that Canada-U.S. trade for the month was US$46.7 ¶ billion, followed by China with $32 billion and Mexico with US$28.9 billion.¶
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NAFTA key to the Canadian Economy
| 2,686 | 34 | 1,618 | 451 | 6 | 273 | 0.013304 | 0.605322 |
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Most of people do not know that there is a three part agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico. This agreement is one of the most beneficial agreements concluded in the history of three governments. The benefits of this treaty are numerous for each country and there are impacts that can be considered to be considerable for the economic situation of Canada. This agreement is known as The North America Free Trade Agreement which was signed in January, 1994 and combines three largest trading zones in the world. One of the fundamental approaches to this treaty is that these governments wanted to achieve the elimination of any barriers in trading between these three countries.¶ The trading zone estimates about 444 million people living on this territory of the North America Free Trade Agreement. About 24 million Canadians live on the territory and they take their decisive part in establishing concrete and reliable trading relations. The agreement appeared rather beneficial for all the three countries and the concrete trading relations provided a great boost to the economic conditions of Canada. The Canadian companies located on that territory increased the trade by 80 per cent and Canada nearly doubled the trading potencies with Mexico. With concluding this treaty, the Canadian economy has benefited from exporting its trucks, cars and parts in large numbers which provided a fast and intensive development in the machinery industry.¶ In addition, the number of exports has increased as well and mostly, the products of communications equipment as well as automotive equipment started to enter the country and as a result this increased the productivity in all other industries making it rather cheap and fast to produce the products in the country. The great impact of three side agreement was provided in the area of agricultural products. The increase in trading the agricultural products was eminent and numerous jobs were created as the result of successful trading relation between three countries. Farmers, ranchers and consumers could provide and consume all sorts of fruits and veggies at low cost.¶ The point of great interest appeared the market of Mexico for Canadian private companies. Before the access to the Mexican market was limited and any trading was faced with a lot of taxes and barriers. The expansion of Canadian companies on the territory of Mexico appeared to be rather vivid and Canadian companies took advantages of all the opportunities provided by the agreement. As a result, the Canadian economy started getting profits in those spheres that were restricted. One of these spheres appeared to be automotive parts. Besides, the Canadian government appeared to be rather assisting in developing trading relations.¶ Numerous possibilities for financial grants appeared to be available for those who wanted to do business on the territory of three countries. The companies that wanted to get some beneficial money could apply for loans for developing new sectors of trading development. They just needed to provide a detailed plan of business development and loans at lowest interest rates were available for them.¶ By introducing beneficial financing of small and developing businesses, the Canadian government developed a vast network of trading companies that could reduce the cost of manufacturing processes and develop new spheres of attracting financial resources. As a result, the economic development of Canada appeared much faster and the stability of the economic model attracted a lot of investors from different countries. Due to the development of online services, any investor can support the Canadian economy and buying corporate shares turned to be an effective way to get foreign money into the country.
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CBPL 12- Canadian based Payday Loans (“Canadian Economy boosted with NAFTA”, May, 29,2012, http://www.24loans.ca/canadian-economy-boosted-with-nafta/)//RT
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This agreement is one of the most beneficial agreements concluded in the history of three governments The North America Free Trade Agreement which was signed in January, 1994 and combines three largest trading zones in the world. One of the fundamental approaches to this treaty is that these governments wanted to achieve the elimination of any barriers in trading between these three countries.¶ The trading zone estimates about 444 million people living on this territory of the North America Free Trade Agreement The agreement appeared rather beneficial for all the three countries and the concrete trading relations provided a great boost to the economic conditions of Canada. The Canadian companies located on that territory increased the trade by 80 per cent and Canada nearly doubled the trading potencies with Mexico. With concluding this treaty, the Canadian economy has benefited from exporting its trucks, cars and parts in large numbers which provided a fast and intensive development in the machinery industry.¶ great impact of three side agreement was provided in the area of agricultural products. The increase in trading the agricultural products was eminent and numerous jobs were created as the result of successful trading relation between three countries. Farmers, ranchers and consumers could provide and consume all sorts of fruits and veggies at low cost.¶ .¶ Numerous possibilities for financial grants appeared to be available for those who wanted to do business on the territory of three countries companies wanted to get some beneficial money could apply for loans for developing new sectors of trading development. They just needed to provide a detailed plan of business development and loans at lowest interest rates were available for them the economic development of Canada appeared much faster and the stability of the economic model attracted a lot of investors from different countries. Due to the development of online services, any investor can support the Canadian economy and buying corporate shares turned to be an effective way to get foreign money into the country.
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NAFTA key to the Canadian Economy
| 3,776 | 33 | 2,107 | 596 | 6 | 331 | 0.010067 | 0.555369 |
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The claims of large employment gains were equally flawed. An-¶ alysts at several Washington think tanks (both favorable and unfavorable¶ to NAFTA) settled upon the rule of thumb that every $1 billion in exports¶ generates or supports 15,000 jobs (implying conversely that every $1 bil-¶ lion in imports eliminates the same number of jobs) as a way of evaluat-¶ ing the employment effects of trade agreements. Some NAFTA propo-¶ nents argued that, because Mexico was to eliminate relatively high tariffs¶ against U .S. goods while U.S. tariffs against Mexican goods were already¶ very low, the agreement would generate more exports to, than imports¶ from, Mexico. Using the rule of thumb, it was therefore reasoned that¶ NAFTA would result in net job creation. For example, President Clintons¶ trade representative, Mickey Kantor, claimed that the agreement would¶ create 200,000 new jobs within two years.¶ Such formulaic calculations and predictions were made to fight¶ the dire forecasts that thousands of jobs would he lost as 21 result of¶ NAFTA, but there was never any reason to believe these Figures. Even if¶ tariff reductions are asymmetric, exports may not grow more rapidly than¶ imports. And it is 21 further mistake to think that changes in the trade¶ balance translate into predictable Changes in employment; a booming¶ economy with low unemployment may be accompanied by a growing¶ trade deficit because people have more money to spend on imports. In¶ any case, these claims for the job-creation benefits of NAFTA soon boo-¶ meranged. When the peso collapsed in late 1994. for reasons that had¶ nothing to do with NAFTA, imports from Mexico surged and the U.S.¶ trade surplus evaporated."
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Irwin ‘9 – professor of economics at Dartmouth College and the author of Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade (Douglas A, “Free Trade under Fire,” 2009, Princeton University Press)//ER
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every $1 billion in exports¶ generates or supports 15,000 jobs as a way of evaluat-¶ ing the employment effects of trade agreements. propo-¶ nents argued that the agreement would generate more exports to, than imports¶ from, Mexico. Using the rule of thumb, it was therefore reasoned that¶ NAFTA would result in net job creation. formulaic calculations and predictions were made to fight¶ the dire forecasts that thousands of jobs would he lost as 21 result of¶ NAFTA, but there was never any reason to believe these Figures. exports may not grow more rapidly than¶ imports a booming¶ economy with low unemployment may be accompanied by a growing¶ trade deficit because people have more money to spend on imports When the peso collapsed in late 1994. for reasons that had¶ nothing to do with NAFTA, imports from Mexico surged and the U.S.¶ trade surplus evaporated."
|
NAFTA doesn’t cause job loss – statistics and peso collapse prove
| 1,703 | 65 | 866 | 273 | 11 | 144 | 0.040293 | 0.527473 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
|
Michigan (7-week)
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Unknown
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2013
|
3,095 |
With a decade of hindsight, there is no evidence of a “giant sucking sound” of jobs, investment and manufacturing capacity heading south. After passage of NAFTA, in fact, the U.S. economy created millions of jobs. Civilian employment in the U.S. economy grew from 120.3 million in 1993 to 135.1 million in 2001—an increase of almost 2 million jobs per year—the unemployment rate fell steadily, and real wages have risen up and down the income scale. Blame for the recent rise in unemployment belongs to the relatively mild recession of 2001—a recession brought on not by NAFTA but by rising interest rates and energy prices and a falling stock market.¶ Despite predictions, NAFTA did not cause an exodus of manufacturing investment to Mexico. U.S. investment in Mexico did increase after NAFTA, along with trade, but those flows are a trickle compared with what we invest domestically. In the eight years after the implementation of NAFTA, from 1994 through 2001, U.S. manufacturing companies invested an average of $2.2 billion a year in factories in Mexico, a fraction of the $200 billion invested in manufacturing each year in the domestic U.S. economy. The small outflow of direct manufacturing investment to Mexico has been overwhelmed by the net inflow of such investment from the rest of the world—an average of $16 billion a year since 1994.¶ Nowhere were the predictions about NAFTA more apocalyptic than in regard to manufacturing. The critics warned that NAFTA would “deindustrialize” the United States, but between 1993 and 2001, U.S. manufacturing output rose by one-third, and output of motor vehicles and parts rose nearly as fast. Since 1993, manufacturing output in the United States has risen at an annual average rate of 3.7 percent, 50 percent faster than during the eight years before enactment of NAFTA. The number of Americans employed in manufacturing grew by more than 700,000 in the first four years of NAFTA, from January 1994 to January 1998. Of course, this is not an argument that NAFTA was the primary cause of the acceleration in manufacturing output, but it does knock the wind out of the myth that NAFTA has somehow “deindustrialized” our economy.¶ By every reasonable measure, NAFTA has been a public policy success. It has deepened and institutionalized Mexico’s drive to modernize and liberalize its economy, society and political system. It has spurred trade, investment and economic integration in North America. And it has enhanced American productivity and prosperity—refuting the critics who were wrong 10 years ago and are just as wrong today.
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Griswold ‘2 – director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute. (Daniel, “By Every Reasonable Measure, NAFTA Has Been a Success,” Cato Institute Commentary, 12/27/02, Google Scholar)//ER
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there is no evidence of a “giant sucking sound” of jobs, investment and manufacturing capacity heading south. After passage of NAFTA, in fact, the U.S. economy created millions of jobs. Civilian employment in the U.S. economy grew the unemployment rate fell steadily, and real wages have risen up and down the income scale. NAFTA did not cause an exodus of manufacturing investment to Mexico. U.S. investment in Mexico did increase after NAFTA, along with trade, but those flows are a trickle compared with what we invest domestically. In the eight years after the implementation of NAFTA U.S. manufacturing companies invested an average of $2.2 billion a year in factories in Mexico The small outflow of direct manufacturing investment to Mexico has been overwhelmed by the net inflow of such investment from the rest of the world Nowhere were the predictions about NAFTA more apocalyptic than in regard to manufacturing U.S. manufacturing output rose by one-third, and output of motor vehicles and parts rose nearly as fas Since 1993, manufacturing output in the United States has risen at an annual average rate of 3.7 percent, 50 percent faster than during the eight years before enactment of NAFTA. it does knock the wind out of the myth that NAFTA has somehow “deindustrialized” our economy.¶ NAFTA has been a public policy success. It has deepened and institutionalized Mexico’s drive to modernize and liberalize its economy, society and political system. It has spurred trade, investment and economic integration in North America. And it has enhanced American productivity and prosperity—refuting the critics who were wrong 10 years ago and are just as wrong today.
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NAFTA helps improve trade and jobs in North America
| 2,586 | 51 | 1,673 | 419 | 9 | 269 | 0.02148 | 0.642005 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
|
Michigan (7-week)
|
Unknown
|
2013
|
3,096 |
Measuring the impact of a specific trade deal on a country's labor market is not a straightforward exercise, and analysts disagree on how to gauge NAFTA's effects. The USTR claims a broadly positive influence, citing figures that show an increase in overall U.S. employment of 24 percent since NAFTA's inception, as well as declining unemployment rates over the same period. In addition, the USTR cites data showing that inflation-adjusted U.S. wages rose 19.3 percent between 1993 and 2007, as compared to only 11 percent in the fourteen years prior. Many economists agree that NAFTA has had some positive impact on overall U.S. employment. But most also agree that gains have been accompanied by some painful side effects. Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, notes that wages haven't kept pace with labor productivity and that income inequality has risen in recent years, in part due to pressures on the U.S. manufacturing base. To some extent, he says, trade deals have hastened the pace of these changes in that they have "reinforced the globalization of the American economy." Opponents of NAFTA take a starker position. Thea M. Lee is policy director for the AFL-CIO, which opposes NAFTA and lobbies against other free trade agreements as unfair to U.S. workers and corporations unless they include provisions that require signatory countries to raise labor and environmental standards. Lee argues one of the main upshots of the deal has been to "force workers into more direct competition with each other, while assuring them fewer rights and protections." The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning research organization, says in a policy paper on NAFTA that the deal's trade agenda has served to widen U.S. trade deficits and has indirectly pushed some U.S. workers into lower-paying jobs. But most economists say it's a stretch to blame these shifts on NAFTA. "The problems in Youngstown, Ohio, and other places like that go back decades before NAFTA," says Daniel T. Griswold, the director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the libertarian Cato Institute. Griswold says job losses are "part of a structural shift of the U.S. economy" away from a focus on heavy manufacturing and toward a focus on light manufacturing and high-end services. "It's a cruel illusion to say if we just go in and tinker with NAFTA there will be some kind of industrial renaissance," he says. Alden echoes this idea and says that broader economic trends affecting U.S. employment--the rise of China and skyrocketing energy prices, for instance--wouldn't be substantially altered by U.S. policy shifts toward NAFTA.
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Teslik, 9 - bachelor's degree from Harvard University and an MBA from INSEAD, senior editor and commodities analyst at Roubini Global Economics, associate editor of economics for the Council on Foreign Relations, (Lee Hudson, “NAFTA's Economic Impact”, July 7, 2009 http://www.cfr.org/economics/naftas-economic-impact/p15790#p3)
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USTR claims a broadly positive influence, citing figures that show an increase in overall U.S. employment of 24 percent since NAFTA's inception, as well as declining unemployment rates over the same period data showing U.S. wages rose 19.3 percent economists agree that NAFTA has had some positive impact on overall U.S. employment Opponents argues the deal has been to "force workers into more direct competition with each other, while assuring them fewer rights and protections But most economists say it's a stretch to blame these shifts on NAFTA problems go back decades before NAFTA says Griswold job losses are "part of a structural shift of the U.S. economy" away from a focus on heavy manufacturing It's a cruel illusion Alden echoes this idea and says that broader economic trends affecting U.S. employment--the rise of China and skyrocketing energy prices, for instance--wouldn't be substantially altered by U.S. policy shifts toward NAFTA.
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The majority of economists conclude aff – job losses are structural not NAFTA
| 2,644 | 77 | 950 | 427 | 13 | 150 | 0.030445 | 0.351288 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
|
Michigan (7-week)
|
Unknown
|
2013
|
3,097 |
U.S. Employment and Wages Before NAFTA's approval, all opponents claimed the agreement would lead to significant job losses in the United States. Cheap, labor-intensive Mexican imports would outcompete with U.S. goods, and plants would be attracted to Mexico by lower wages. Three years of evidence reveals that such fears were unfounded. One indicator of the gross disemployment effects caused by NAFTA is the Trade Adjustment Assistance (NAFTA-TAA) certifications for all industries given by the Department of Labor. The cumulative figure between January 1994 and December 1996 equals close to 90,000 certifications. Sixty percent of these are Mexico-related (as opposed to Canada or unspecified country). Forty percent of this amount is due to plant relocation, and the rest to employment displaced by imports. However, this number is the total number of recipients of NAFTA-related assistance, which is not equivalent to the total number of people who may be unemployed as a result of NAFTA. USTR figures indicate that about 6,000 of eligible recipients actually used the benefits, suggesting that the rest have probably been reemployed. Also, an accurate assessment of the net employment effect of NAFTA would need to look at job creation as well. A recent study that attempts to do this analytically found that the overall impact of NAFTA tariff liberalization on U.S. employment has been slightly positive. Job displacement may be causing real hardship for some individuals and families, but it is important to put these figures in context. Since NAFTA, the United States has created about 2.25 million jobs a year. Furthermore, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, total gross job displacements (subsequently reemployed in most cases) during the first nine months of 1996 averaged 2.4 million workers per month. On a monthly basis, the NAFTA-TAA certified workers since the agreement came into effect equal 2,569 a month (82,223 divided by 32 months). NAFTA-certified job displacements were only about one in 1,000 of the average monthly layoffs during the first nine months of 1996.
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Lustig, 12 - PhD in Economics from the University of California at Berkeley, President of the Universidad de las Américas-Puebla, Senior Advisor and Chief of the Poverty and Inequality Unit, Department of Social Programs and Sustainable Development at the Inter-American Development Bank Director of the 2000/2001 World Development Report (Nora C., “NAFTA: Setting the Record Straight” 2012 Updated, http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ455/lapan/Readings/NAFTA,%20Setting%20the%20Record%20Straight.pdf)
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opponents claimed the agreement would lead to significant job losses years of evidence reveals that such fears were unfounded disemployment Forty percent of this amount is due to plant relocation, and the rest to employment displaced by imports an accurate assessment of the net employment effect of NAFTA found that the overall impact of NAFTA tariff liberalization on U.S. employment has been positive. Job displacement is important in context NAFTA-certified job displacements were only about one in 1,000
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Empirics show job creation
| 2,100 | 26 | 509 | 328 | 4 | 78 | 0.012195 | 0.237805 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
|
Michigan (7-week)
|
Unknown
|
2013
|
3,098 |
Economists Lorenzo Caliendo of Yale and Fernando Parro of the Federal Reserve built a trade model to analyze how the agreement changed the level of trade between the three countries and their residents’ welfare levels. They find that the effects of NAFTA dwarf those of any other agreement, with greater effects than all other tariff reductions undertaken by the three countries put together. All three countries saw real wages increase as a result of NAFTA. The effects in the United States and Canada, however, are fairly mild. Wages in Canada grew 0.96 percent, while U.S. wages grew 0.17 percent. That’s something, and given that U.S. wages have been stagnant or falling in recent decades, any gains are good news. But the real success story is Mexico, where wages grew 1.3 percent due to NAFTA. That’s to be expected, since trade with Canada and the U.S. is a more important part of its economy than, say, trade with Canada and Mexico is to the U.S. It also saw the biggest tariff reductions of the three, further amplifying the effects. 1.3 percent isn’t a ton, and the productivity gains the country has seen since have disappointed some former advocates. But it’s not nothing. This is the pattern generally with trade liberalization. All else being equal, all parties tend to benefit, but developing countries benefit most. That’s why global development advocates at institutions like the Center for Global Development have been pushing hard for the Obama administration to eliminate barriers that harm export industries in poor countries.
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Matthews, 12 – Washington post (Dylan, “Study: NAFTA raised pay here and abroad” November 12, 2012 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/11/12/study-nafta-raised-pay-here-and-abroad/)
|
Economists Lorenzo Caliendo of Yale and Fernando Parro of the Federal Reserve built a trade model to analyze how the agreement changed the level of trade between the three countries and their residents’ welfare levels. the effects of NAFTA dwarf those of any other agreement All three countries saw real wages increase as a result of NAFTA Mexico wages grew 1.3 percent due to NAFTA trade with Canada and the U.S. is a more important part of its economy than, trade with Canada and Mexico is to the U S This is the pattern generally with trade liberalization. all parties tend to benefit, but developing countries benefit most
|
Recent studies point to wage increases
| 1,547 | 38 | 626 | 254 | 6 | 108 | 0.023622 | 0.425197 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
|
Michigan (7-week)
|
Unknown
|
2013
|
3,099 |
Reality: The NAFTA partners negotiated a parallel agreement on environmental cooperation, the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC). The NAAEC commits the NAFTA partners to work cooperatively to better understand and improve the protection of their environment. The agreement also requires that each NAFTA partner effectively enforce its environmental laws.¶ The Commission for Environmental Cooperation, established under the NAAEC, has produced concrete improvements in the management of North American environmental issues. With a budget of US$9 million annually, some initiatives of the Commission include the:¶ development of North American management practices for toxic chemicals;¶ establishment of the first Mexican national air emissions inventory;¶ launch of the North American Bird Conservation Initiative, which provides a resource for bird conservation programs in the three countries;¶ promotion of best practices to address the linkages between the environment, the economy, and trade.¶ Additionally, the United States and Mexico created two binational institutions. The Border Environment Cooperation Commission provides technical support for the development of environmental infrastructure projects in the U.S.-Mexico border region (www.cocef.org). The North American Development Bank finances these projects (www.nadbank.org). To date, they have provided nearly US$1 billion for 135 environmental infrastructure projects with a total estimated cost of US$2.89 billion and allocated US$33.5 million in assistance and US$21.6 million in grants for over 450 other border environmental projects. The Mexican government has also made substantial new investments in environmental protection, increasing the federal budget for the environmental sector by 81% between 2003 and 2008.
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NN, 12 (NaftaNow, Myths vs. Reality, 05-02-2012, http://www.naftanow.org/myths/default_en.asp)
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NAFTA partners negotiated a parallel agreement on environmental cooperation the NAAEC The NAAEC commits the NAFTA partners to work cooperatively to better understand and improve the protection of their environment The NAAEC, has produced concrete improvements in the management of North American environmental issues With a budget of US$9 million annually Additionally, the United States and Mexico created two binational institutions. The Border Environment Cooperation Commission provides technical support for the development of environmental infrastructure projects in the U.S.-Mexico border region The North American Development Bank finances these projects they have provided nearly US$1 billion for 135 environmental infrastructure projects with a total estimated cost of US$2.89 billion he Mexican government has also made substantial new investments in environmental protection, increasing the federal budget for the environmental sector by 81% between 2003 and 2008
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Specificially other mechanisms have been funded
| 1,816 | 48 | 975 | 244 | 6 | 134 | 0.02459 | 0.54918 |
NAFTA Good-Bad - Michigan7 2013 PCFJV.html5
|
Michigan (7-week)
|
Unknown
|
2013
|
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