NAFTA:- North American Free Trade Agreement
NAFTA which stands for North American Free Trade Agreement is an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America. It came into force on 1 January 1994 and superseded the 1988 Canada-US Free Trade Agreement between the US and Canada. It is set to be replaced by the 2018 United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. The two supplements of NAFTA include the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC) and the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC). According to economic analyses, Economists hold that withdrawing from NAFTA will adversely affect the US economy and cost jobs. However, Mexico would be affected even more than the US by job loss and reduction of economic growth.
The implementation of NAFTA brought the elimination of tariffs on more than one-half of Mexico’s exports to the US and more than one-third of US exports to Mexico. It established the CANAMEX corridor for road transport between Canada and Mexico also used by rail, pipeline and fiber optic telecommunication infrastructure.