NAFTA: For Greater Goods

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1994 opened up a vast amount of opportunities not only for consumers but also for North America as a whole.  NAFTA makes up the world’s largest free trade area.  The purpose of this agreement was to take down any barriers in the trading system.  This allowed for more goods to be processed and traded amongst Mexico, Canada, and the United States.  The NAFTA agreement made trade cheaper as well as easier.  Mass quantities of goods have been made and traded between these three countries since then.

Along with the availability of goods came the opportunity for work.  The increase in demand for certain products called for companies from the three countries to make the move and establish themselves out of their original country.  The companies that moved from the United States to Canada and Mexico brought job opportunities to Mexican and Canadian workers, but took away the jobs of thousands in the United States.

The high demand for newly and cheaply available goods called for the mass production of them.  This meant that more people were needed to do the job.  Unfortunately, the cheap selling and trading of goods was not making enough money for companies to pay their employees a high enough wage.  Workers have been working for a cheap pay.  Immigrant and women workers are usually the ones to end up with jobs that overwork them but do not pay sufficiently.

It would be assumed that the NAFTA agreement would bring out positive and welcoming reactions from people.  Though it seems that nothing but good could come of the NAFTA agreement, the indigenous people of Mexico were not very happy about it.  With such an increase in production and trade of goods, more companies had to set up shop to keep up with the increasing demand.  These companies needed places to build their factories and produce mass quantities of goods.  The NAFTA agreement allowed these companies to buy land that was owned and settled by the indigenous people.  Naturally, this angered the indigenous people and they rebelled against NAFTA in attempt to regain their lands.  The indigenous people were not only upset by the fact that NAFTA was selling their land but also because the increase in traded goods took away from the business of their locally made and sold goods.  With everything coming in and being sold cheap from Canada and the United States, more and more people opted to purchase foreign goods rather than local.  The indigenous people have lost business because of the NAFTA agreement.

The NAFTA agreement has made trading between Canada, Mexico, and the United States easier and more affordable.  If it weren’t for the NAFTA agreement, we wouldn’t be able to go into a store and find or purchase products from our neighboring countries.  I can see why the Zapatistas have become upset over the NAFTA agreement but I also realize that NAFTA has brought opportunity and availability to us.  Being the largest free trade agreement in the world, more and more countries have signed agreements such as NAFTA, which allow them to do the same.  If our NAFTA agreement has inspired other countries to make free trade agreements of their own, then we must have made the right choice back in 1994.