Thoughts on Nafta

http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe/document?_m=fa48042a8f0d2f56594a3de460822a5c&_docnum=5&wchp=dGLbVlb-zSkVb&_md5=cfa1c33303ad064180ae18742e96e4b8

I really wish I could figure out how to get smaller links.
Anyway, this is an article from Business Outlook about a recent Senate panel discussion on the pros and cons of NAFTA. In short, trade has increased, as might be expected from a free trade agreement. American agricultural exports in particular have grown by 160%. However, as manufacturing jobs have been created in Mexico, a nearly as large number of Mexican farmers have been driven from the market by American competition. Nancy Peloski (sic) believed that Mexican farmers had lost more than they gained from NAFTA.

So farmers left the land, and a similar number (greater in fact) took up manufacturing jobs. Historically, it was the increased productivity of farms that led to the large supply of labor that fueled the Industrial Revolution. So Mexico's poverty and large-scale unemployment, which existed before NAFTA, have been reduced somewhat as industrialization takes place. NAFTA has not solved all problems instantly, but that's not what it was for. It was to create wealth through increased trade and help the economic development of Mexico, which it has done to a significant (though not enormous) degree. NAFTA is awesome.