1993-+NAFTAg5

=North American Free Trade Agreement =

Overview
The North American Free Trade Agreement is an agreement signed by the governments of the United States, Canada, and Mexico creating a three way trade group in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994. It followed and was modeled after the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement between the U.S. and Canada. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has two parts, the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) and the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC).

Central Issue
On Dec. 17, 1992, President Bush of the United States, Mexican President Carlos Salinas, and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney signed the historic North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The agreement eliminated restrictions on the flow of goods, services, and investment in North America. The United States House of Representatives approved NAFTA, by a vote of 234 to 200 on November 17, 1993. The United States Senate voted 60 to 38 for approval on November 20. President Clinton signed it on December 8, 1993, and took it effect on January 1, 1994. With NAFTA, the United States, Canada, and Mexico became a giant, mixed market of around 400 million people with $6.5 trillion worth of goods and services each year. Before NAFTA, Mexicans had to pay about 250% in tariffs. After, about half of the tariffs on trade between Mexico and the United States were eliminated.The rest of the tariffs and restrictions will be taken out over a period of 15 years. NAFTA took full effect in the US on January 1, 2008. NAFTA also marks the first time in history of U.S. trade policy that environmental concerns have been brought up. The trade group of USA, Mexico, and Canada is the largest in the world of buying power parity GDP, and the second largest by nominal GDP.

Conclusion
In full effect, trade restriction on products like corn,beans,dry milk and corn syrup are now removed. Since 2005, the United States has spent about $20 million in programs to help Mexico in production, distribution and other parts of free trade. From 1992-2007, the value of U.S. agricultural exports worldwide climbed 65% and farm and food exports to Canada and Mexico went up by 156%. U.S. farm and food exports to Mexico was over $11.5 billion in 2007. From 2001 to 2006, U.S. farm and food exports to Mexico climbed by $3.6 billion to $10.8 billion.