Essay: NAFTA

Submitted By Carlitafermosa1
Words: 1082
Pages: 5

History 21
October 25, 2011 North American Free Trade Agreement America has long since been accustomed to rotating of the power. Depending on the President, he is inaugurated into office for a term of four years, maybe eight. Typically, he has to manipulate his term through years of mistakes made by the previous President. Many people blame both the Bush Presidents for the conflicts in the Middle East. Many people also attribute the wartime advancements that the United States has made, such as lower American military death count, to the Bush Presidents. This progress is exemplified with the deaths of Saddam and Osama. Currently, Obama is being blamed for every financial crisis known to man. This blame includes the publicizing of healthcare and the enormous deficit that the United States currently faces. President Clinton had a slew of bizarre happenings that occurred throughout his presidency. He certainly accomplished quite a bit throughout his administration, specifically, opening up free trade with the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Hamilton). If one is attempting to understand the North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA) and how it affected the United States, one must understand a brief summary of how President Clinton operated under a system of unique political beliefs. President Clinton was elected as the forty-second President of the United States and governed under the longest period of peacetime in American history (Hamilton). He was a man of mixed political standings, or so it seemed to the people who were on the opposing side of his beliefs. His first term was more liberal and his second term was more conservative. He typically adopted the majority’s point of view. For example, he relied heavily on deriving opinions from public support through public opinion polls and focus groups (Streb).
One could assume that Bill Clinton had a fair approach to his office and probably had some what of an open mind based upon his blended political beliefs. He adopted rather liberal approaches to air and water quality regulations, imposed opportunities for low-income families to become involved in children’s education and health, and invoked a campaign for moderate gun control (Hamilton). His more conservative beliefs dealt with tougher anticrime measures, welfare reform, and actively seeking solutions to reduce the United States deficit. His proposed mixed political beliefs were culminated and President Clinton coined the term “Third Way” to express his beliefs (Hamilton). In 1992, President George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, and Mexican President Carlos Salinas signed the North American Free Trade Act (North1). This created a trilateral trade bloc in North America, or a type of intergovernmental agreement that dissolved barriers of trade amongst the participating states (Cameron). Now, Canada, the United States, and Mexico were all in agreement with each other to trade. There was a ceremony for the signing, but it still required ratification by each previously mentioned country’s parliament or legislative branch. This signing followed a meeting that took place in 1986 while Reagan was President, when negotiations commenced for Canada and the United States reached a free trade agreement. Clinton shared some of Reagan’s political patterns by shifting from Democratic beliefs to Republican beliefs. Not all American citizens received this new trade agreement in a positive manner. Many liberal citizens believed that with the release of the barriers, that this could mean that American jobs would be lost to a job market in another country, outsourced, in an effort to capitalize (Hartman). In fact, Democratic labor unions went as far as protesting against this new agreement due to their fears of jobs being outsourced. American workers fears became a reality when the NAFTA was signed and implemented on January 1, 1994. George H.W. Bush was no longer the American President by