North American Free Trade Area

The first step was the Abbot Plan, adopted in 1947, whose goal was to stimulate US investment in leading sectors of the Canadian economy. In 1959, the United States and Canada entered into an agreement on joint military production, which contributed to the implementation of American standards in the Canadian production of military equipment.

The next step was the conclusion in 1965 of an agreement on the liberalization of trade in automotive products, which contributed to the integration of many other industries. The idea of ​​the trade and political unification of the USA, Canada and Mexico began to be implemented in the 1970s . First, it was about designing an energy union. A similar idea was supported in the 1980s by presidents R. Reagan and George W. Bush .

In September 1988, after a difficult three-year negotiations, the Canadian-American Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) was signed, according to which the United States and Canada were to form a free trade zone for ten years.

In light of the integration processes in Europe and Asia that took place in the 1980s, the importance of the question of creating NAFTA increased, since it became clear that the unification of Europe and, as part of it, North America should be the answer to the unification of Europe. However, from the very beginning, Mexico , Canada, and the United States viewed the role and potential of NAFTA from various perspectives.

The agreement to establish the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) entered into force on January 1, 1994 , retaining and reaffirming the 1988 Canadian-American Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA).

If in the EU integration processes went from top to bottom (from governments and state bodies), then in North America - from bottom to top, that is, from the desire for cooperation at the micro level (between American and Canadian corporations) to cooperation at the macro level.

Unlike the agreements that underlie the European integration processes, the NAFTA agreement does not cover issues related to the social sphere, such as employment, education, culture, etc.

The process of transition to free trade within the framework of NAFTA continues to this day and has proved to be very complicated. The elimination of trade duties took about 14 years. Only on January 1, 2008, trade duties between Mexico and the USA and between Mexico and Canada were finally canceled ^[3] . Nevertheless, at the beginning of the 2010s, some of the duties in the agricultural sector (for flour, sugar, dairy products, eggs) remained ^[3] . On June 1, 2018, the United States imposed duties on steel and aluminum.

The main objective of NAFTA is to remove barriers to trade and investment between the United States, Canada and Mexico.

While the European Union is based on the concept of federal politics with the distribution of power between its bodies - the Council, Commission, Parliament and the Court of Justice, on the one hand, and member states on the other, NAFTA is building integration on the basis of confederate ties between independent sovereign states. Cooperation in the field of trade in each of these states is supported by autonomous decision-making bodies within the framework established by NAFTA. NAFTA goals:

- elimination of customs and passport barriers and stimulation of the movement of goods and services between the countries participating in the agreement;

- creating and maintaining conditions for fair competition in the free trade area;

- attracting investment in member countries of the agreement;

- ensuring proper and effective protection and protection of intellectual property rights;

- Creation of effective mechanisms for the implementation and use of the Agreement, joint dispute resolution and management;

- Creation of a base for future trilateral, regional and international cooperation in order to expand and improve the Agreement;

- creation of a single continental market.

The USA is practically the only industrial country in the world that does not recognize non-property rights to copyrighted works and refuses them judicial protection. The legal systems of Mexico and Canada are not characteristic of this approach. Therefore, after a series of discussions, the NAFTA regulatory documents explicitly determined that US accession to NAFTA would not affect US intellectual property law on this issue. NAFTA expressly states that it does not impose any obligation on the United States to ensure that US law complies with the requirements of Art. 6 of the Berne Convention on the prohibition of unauthorized distortion, rewriting, or otherwise changing any copyrighted work ^[4] .

NAFTA is one of the main targets of criticism of the alter globalization movement. The start of the Zapatista uprising in the Mexican state of Chiapas was timed to coincide with the entry into force of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement.

Despite a significant increase in mutual trade after the formation of NAFTA, the share of NAFTA countries in each other's foreign trade has not changed much. The volume of mutual exports between the NAFTA countries in 1994-2013 increased from $ 297 billion to $ 1,189 billion ^[5] . The share of mutual exports over the same period increased from 41.4% to 49.2% ^[5] .

In April 1999, the North American Free Trade Area Agreement Commission published data showing that in the 5 years of NAFTA's existence, the United States gained 14.8 million new jobs due to export growth to partner countries, while Mexico received 2. 2 million, and Canada - 1.3 million.

According to the results of the 20 years of NAFTA's existence, a significant increase in the number of jobs in all countries (primarily in Canada and Mexico) can be noted. Between 1993 and 2013, the number of jobs in Mexico increased from 31.3 million people to 51.5 million people, in Canada from 12.8 million people to 19.1 million people, while in the USA only from 120.0 million people up to 155.4 million people ^[6] .

Various environmental and trade union groups in the United States, like many members of the US Congress, continue to be wary of business activity moving to Mexico with its low labor and environmental standards; In addition, the flow of immigrants from Mexico already reaches 300 thousand people a year. Trade issues and the pressure of global economic interdependence cause major political debate: will new jobs be created in the United States or, on the contrary, will be greatly reduced, will the wages of American workers decrease, will the federal budget deficit grow; although at the same time, the process of implementing the agreement is fairly calm in an atmosphere of relative economic recovery. Free trade is considered to be the reason for the growing inequality of the economies of Canada and Mexico with the US economy, as well as the reduction of social support programs in these countries, the ongoing shift of the tax burden from corporations to citizens, high unemployment, and further impoverishment of the poorest provinces and states. However, the US unemployment rate in 1999 was 4%, compared to 7.5% in 1992; in the five years since 1994, 15 million new jobs were created.

The expansion of trade between the USA, Canada and Mexico, and in particular the growth of US imports from NAFTA countries, contributes to the growth of the US trade deficit, which in 2005 already exceeded $ 720 billion. Canada and Mexico occupy fourth and fifth places among the countries with which the USA have the largest trade deficit (after Japan, China and Germany)

According to the results of 20 years of operation of NAFTA, researchers note that the free trade zone did not lead to a significant reduction in the wage gap in Mexico on the one hand and in the USA and Canada on the other ^[7] .

Donald Trump, elected at the end of 2016 by the 45th President of the United States, announced the need to revise the conditions under which the United States enters into the agreement, while allowing the possibility of withdrawing from it ^[8] , calling NAFTA the “worst agreement” that has ever existed in the world. The new USMCA (first letter in country names) was signed on November 30, 2018. Trump said that after the signing of the new agreement, Mexico and Canada will become wonderful trading partners of the United States. ^[9]

• Central Institute - Free Trade Commission. It includes representatives at the level of trade ministers from the three participating countries. The Commission oversees the implementation and further development of the Agreement and helps resolve disputes arising.
• The NAFTA Coordinating Secretariat is called upon to serve as the official archive of the work of NAFTA and to serve as the working secretariat for the Commission.

• US-Mexican Relations
• European Economic Area
• European Free Trade Association
• Canadian-Mexican Relations
• North American Union

• Edward J. Chambers, Peter H. Smith (2002) NAFTA in the new millennium . University of California, San Diego. Center for US-Mexican Studies ISBN 0-88864-386-1
• Maxwell A. Cameron, Brian W. Tomlin (2002) The making of NAFTA: how the deal was done . Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8781-1 .
• Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Jeffrey J. Schott (2005) NAFTA Revisited: Achievements and Challenges Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics ISBN 0-88132-334-9
• M. Angeles Villarreal (2010) NAFTA and the Mexican Economy , Federation of American Scientists Congressional Research Service. RL34733

• Public Citizen's Report on NAFTA
• NAFTA Secretariat website
• Border Trade Alliance
• "North" American Free Trade Agreement, 1992 Oct. 7 in the Gutenberg project .
• http://webportal.narod.ru/008.htm