Critiques of North American Free Trade Agreement Policies - Coursework Example

NAFTA, when viewed as a framework, can be compared to a constitution. The U.S. Constitution, as magnificent as the original document was, provided no guarantee about how the separation of powers among the three branches would develop, or what the substance of the first amendment would turn out to be, or even that there would be a common market among the initial and subsequent states. Each of these developments resulted from an accumulation of decisions, mostly building on what went before. The constitution of the former Soviet Union was also a remarkable document, but it turned out to be a facade for repression and not a guide to action.

Mexico, despite its formal name of the United States of Mexico, developed a highly centralized form of federalism quite different from that between the federal government and the separate states of the United States of America. Canada's confederation to this date has not been transformed into a common market in which barriers to trade among the provinces have been eliminated. Trade may be freer between Canada and the United States than between the provinces of Canada.To most observers, NAFTA represents 2,000 pages of detailed and complicated trade regulations and tariffs, but little that resembles a public policy instrument.

Yet, upon looking at the historical relationships between the United States and Mexico and the United States and Canada in particular, and at the pre-NAFTA processes in these countries, it is clear that NAFTA is not only a trading instrument but also a policy mechanism that regulates and cements the sociopolitical and economic integration well underway before the signing. We argue that NAFTA formalized trade and economic processes already linking the three nations, that Michigan companies were some of the leaders in this process, and that the formalization provided by NAFTA enhanced the efficiency of the process.

When the indigenous corn growers rebelled in Chiapas, taking the name of Zapatistas, they chose the anniversary of the NAFTA signing as the day to launch their offensive.