North American Free Trade Agreement

          The North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, is something that is elusive, and few know its particulars. Of course, it's also a battleground for politicians and parties to fight over and point fingers and make each other look bad. I hope this post will be able to educate you in some of its particulars, and help you to form an opinion.
          The basic idea of NAFTA was to create a trade bloc, a triangular trade between the three main North American countries Canada, U.S., and Mexico. Its main function was to remove protective tariffs from exports and imports. For those who don't remember their U.S. history class, or their Civics class, a protective tariff is a fine that you put on imports and exports, that increases its price so that the businesses in the country itself would be protected from foreign competition.
           The hope was that removing these tariffs would encourage a stabilizing of the three economies and the classes of the countries. If they could remove the tariffs, the government stated that it would bring Mexico's economy up, and keep America's and Canada's stable and balanced.
           Of course, that is what they said.
            Originally, the bill was supposed to be signed into law by George Bush Senior. Unfortunately, his final term ended before he could, so he had to turn it over to the Clintons' administration. Of course, instead of signing it into law immediately, the Clintons decided to change the bill around a bit. More on that later.
            The funny thing is, many members of the Republican Party today are angry with NAFTA, and claim that it is the cause of the ruining of our economy (ask any Republican in your ward or community about NAFTA, and you will find this true), when it was the Republicans that first supported the bill and attempted, themselves, to sign it into law. Also, in Canada, Progressive Republicans actually were the ones to sign it into law, while the Liberals fought constantly to repeal it, with the support of the men's and women's of the Liberal senate, and the majority of the Canadians' opinions, and some still do. Every party is to blame for the bad, questionable things in this law.
              Okay, so now is the time to tell you what is wrong with this law. First, a major part of the law that Republicans created and Democrats supported, companies of the countries they were from could sue (not technically, its more like a usage of law, but it is hard to explain so I will use the word sue instead), the government in other countries for passing laws that although may protect its citizens, they hurt the companies' investments. If you have read my bit on corporations you know why alarm bells are sounding off in my head right now.
               This is basically telling the corporations that they can screw other countries over. Because of their influence, they have sucked billions out of the pockets of other countries. Because of company influence, America wins about 90% of their suits, Canada wins only 30%, and Mexico about 10%. I have a few examples of suits I will share with you now.
               1999 Sun Belt Water Inc. sued Canada, because of its prohibition on exporting fresh water in marine tankers. Canada was worried about the stability of its ecosystem and the preservation of lakes and streams, but the company won 105 million dollars from the suit. Reports of environmental damage have been made at sites of rivers, lakes, and streams.
               1996 American sellers of the fuel additive MMT sued Canada for 201 million dollars, because Canada had banned its importation, and the companies were losing some money. Canadian researches claimed that its exhaust caused neural damage, while American researches claimed it had no effects.  America won, and the effects are still not quite known.
                Methanex Corporation, a Canadian corporation, sued the government 960 million dollars, because California had banned it due to some reports of it leaking into wells in the area. Of course, Methanex Corp. lost, and was forced to pay our government 3 million for it.
                Metalclad, and U.S. corporation sued the Mexican government for 15.6 million after a Mexican municipality leader (who's name translated roughly to Ferris) refused the construction of a hazardous waste dump near a Mexican city. NAFTA delcared that the Ferris's statis as a municipality leader did not have the authority to stop it, because the federal government had agreed to it.
               Now, with my second wrong thing with NAFTA, the responsibility for it is mostly Democratic. Bill Clinton had added a section to it that stated that America's partners had to adhere to environmental practices and regulations like their own. That means, that if we pass a law on a certain chemical, Canada and Mexico are automatically forced to have that law. We control what they do, which is very wrong. We have the ability to pull far too many strings, which is what politicians and corporations excel at.
               All-in-all, I believe that this agreement is morally wrong, and gives Americans the power to manipulate the economies of others, and hurt the populations of them. There are other wrongs with the law, but I can't include them in this post, so look on some web sites. Here is a good reference website to start: http://www.suite101.com/content/nafta-is-a-bad-agreement-a46386. Also, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement.    Remember, don't just take my word for it, research and develop your own opinions.