NAFTA demonstrates how American free enterprise economics works. Economic ignorance doesn't. As Prof. Joseph Salerno has explained:
"Capital flowing out of a nation, to other areas where its more productive, to the third world countries, enormously develops the productivity of labor in [those countries] and increases the market for our goods while raising wages and profits in the export industry... Free-market economics gets resources going into their most value productive employments."
That's the way it works in the United States. People should be promoting the American model, especially when the politically insane libs think that America needs to be more like the rest of the world. I can't believe how some of you on Free Republic bought the nonsense that NAFTA was bad for our country or for the other two involved, especially after all the proof to the contrary.
"Each one of the three [NAFTA] signatory countries -- Mexico, Canada, and the United States -- has 'grown considerably faster' than during the previous decade..." Grant Aldonas, Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade. In the period of 1999-2003 All NAFTA member economies have grown significantly: U.S., 38%; Canada, 30.9%; Mexico, 30% growth:
U.S. exports to Canada and Mexico grew. Canada's exports to its NAFTA partners increased by 104% in value. Mexican exports increased by almost 227%. Representing a free trade area with about one-third of the worlds total GDP, the NAFTA economies are significantly larger than that of the European Union. Even with the addition of ten new members, the EU's GDP will still be well behind that of the NAFTA region.
The dismantling of free trade barriers and opening of markets have led to economic growth and rising prosperity in the US, Mexico and Canada. The total volume of trade among the three NAFTA partners expanded from 389.3 billion in 1993 to $623.1 billion in 2003.
In the ten years since NAFTA, productivity rose 28% in the US from 1993-2003, in Mexico up 55% and in Canada up 23%.
In the first decade of NAFTA, US manufacturing output soared, U.S. employment grew, and U.S. manufacturing wages increased dramatically. Income gains and tax cuts from NAFTA were worth up to $930 each year for the average US household of four.
In Mexico, wages in export-related industries are 37% higher than the rest of it's economy. Mexican wages and employment tend to be higher in states with higher foreign investment and trade, and migration from those states is lower. Wages are also higher in sectors with more exposure to imports and exports.
Two-way agricultural trade between the US and Mexico increased more than 125% since NAFTA went into effect, reaching $14 billion in 2003 compared with $6.2 billion in 1993.
Merchandise exports to the US from Canada expanded by 250% since 1989 and account for 87.2% of Canada's total merchandise exports.
Through the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, which was created from NAFTA, all three countries have beneffited from coordination which is increasing in the effectiveness of conservation efforts by developing the North American Conservation Action Plans for three shared marine species, providing tools such as a map of terrestrial ecoregions which management agencies are using in their programs.. NAFTA partners have undertaken a wide-range of cooperative programs and technical exchanges on industrial relations.
(Source: Office of the U.S. Trade Representative)
Our first opportunity to open new markets is the Central American and Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement. It's a classic win-win situation. We have the opportunity here to open new markets for our workers, for our farmers, for our service providers, while, at the same time, leveling the playing field with a region that already enjoys mostly duty-free access to the United States. At the same time, we can help lift people out of poverty in Central America and the Dominican Republic, and we can help solidify those fragile democracies and staunch allies.~President George W. Bush
Salerno is wrong.
Capital flowing out of a nation merely reflects the decline of domestic industries that used to export goods.
So?
We were coming out of the last economic slowdown.
Growth would have happened anyway--
And maybe even more growth without NAFTA.