US embassy safety after the 1998 US embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya - Essay Example

US Embassy safety after the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya FOREIGN POLICY: The foreign policy of a country is defined as a setof gals and guidelines that determine how and when a country will interact with other countries. The extent whether it is a lot or a little and what the nature of that interaction would be are all determined by the foreign policy. The Foreign policies of countries are seen to generally be made up and designed in order to help protect that country's national interests, national security, ideological goals, and economic prosperity. However it is common knowlegde that that can occur only and only in the result which would be of peaceful cooperation and interaction with other nations, and to the contrary through exploitation and ultimately War. One can easily assume that foreign policies are as old and ancient as the society of humans itself. The century known as the twenthieth century has seen a fast rise in the importance and the need of foreign policies, with every nation in the world now having the means, methods and ability of being able to interact with one another in some form. There fore it is vital that one keeps a close check on the bills and formal agreements that are passed between various countries. And the kind of effects that those bills and other agreements have on the relationship and over all views and feelings of the people belonging to those countries. This should be done so that devestating attackes and other tragedies can be avoided based on the effects of certain agreements and bills. Some agrrements and decisions taken on the basis of foreign polivy often cause the economy of either one or both countries involved to go down this in turn takes down the level of employment and ultimatley effects the quality of life for general public. This causes hatred and anger in the hearts of the people towards the people of the othercoutry and drastic expression of such hatred takes the shape of suicide and mass destruction bombings. One take on a foreign policy move which effected relationships between countries can be seen through the implementation of the Trade and lifting of trade barriers, as trade amongst coutries is the number one means of interaction there fore it holds great importance in the formation of zforeign policies. The Bill in questin here is the implementation of NAFTA. The terms and conditions of NAFTA have long been the basis form shaping the relationships between the United States and its neighbouring countries. Some highlights of NAFTA are given below. Approved in November 1993 and brought into effect on 1 January 1994 NAFTA or the North American Free Trade Agreement a trilateral agreement holds Canada, Mexico and the United States as its members. Its approval will see a Drastic change in the economics of these three nations. NAFTA basically draws rules and guidelines between Mexico, Canada and the United States for the elimination of trade barriers regarding goods and originating from within North America. Barriers such as Health and safety standards, import taxes and import/export laws. NAFTA aims at gradually reducing these barriers to the extent of making them non-existent between the member nations. It called of majority of the tariffs and remove restrictions from major categories such as motor vehicles, computers, textiles and agriculture. HISTORY AND ADDITIONS: Provisions regarding Investment restrictions between the three countries also saw removal and intellectual property safety saw new heights (patents, copy writes and trademarks). It being trilateral means that all stipulations equally applying on all members. Further more provisions regarding the protection of labor, workers and the environment were added later on to the agreement. This gave rise to the formation of the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC). Founded on the basis of concerns from the environmentalists that companies would either relocate to Mexico or that the United States would lower its standards if all three countries didn't achieve environmetal regulation. The NAAEC only obligates parties to enforce their own environmental laws. It does not create substantive standards for environmental regulation. The NAAEC, in an aim to be more than a set of environmental regulations, established the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (NACEC), a mechanism for addressing trade and environmental issues, for assisting and financing investments in pollution reduction. As stated above provisions to protect workers and labor were also added to the agreement. This gave formation to the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation NAALC its aim is to create co-operation regarding labor issues between the three member countries, as well as promotion of cooperation amongst trade unions and social organisations to fight for improved labor conditions. Given its limitations, however, NAALC has not produced convergence in employment, productivity and salary trends in North America. CHANGES INTENDED: NAFTA was intended to bring about economical changes but the extent of these changes cannot be agreed upon. Given the scope of the agreement, which includes very sensitive issues in trade talks such as agriculture liberalization and environment regulation, few countries have shown interest in joining NAFTA. Instead, some countries, like Chile, preferred to negotiate three separate bilateral agreements with the three current NAFTA members, with different restrictions to liberalization of their industries and the regulation of environment protection. The implementation of NAFTA has had many effects on the three member countries, Mexico has benifited from NAFTA even after the 1994 -1995 economic crisis Mexico has seena great reduction in poverty rates and a great rise in income rates over all, however, it has also been common agreement that NAFTA hasn't been enough to do that for the other three countries as well. Some suggestions have been that Mexico shoukld begin to promote education and agricultural infrastructure more to benefit from NAFTA. Not just that but NAFTA has also had its effects on big sectors within the three member countries such as Trade, Industry and Agriculture. EFFECTS ON TRADE AND AGRICULTURE SECTORS: Certain sourses indicate that trade amongst the two countries has increased drastically by the implementation of NAFTA with Canada the increase from implementation till 2003 the rise has been approximately estimated at 110% and it is also estimated to have increased with Mexico at 100%( Roughly estimated). The auto parts trade is seen as the most important sector within NAFTA. With the help of Nafta Mexico has sucessfully integrated their auto part markets into the existing markets between Canada and the United States.it has also resulted in the bilingual labelling of products which are simultaneously distributed through the three member countries. Agriculture has and still is one of the most sensitive issues within the NAFTA discussions, it has been the same with all trade agreements signed in the past as well. . Agriculture is the only section that was not negotiated trilaterally; instead, three separate agreements were signed between each pair of parties. The United States and Mexico one has more liberal frame works whereas the Canada and United States agreement has a more defined set of tarrifs and quotas. No doubt that Mexicos agricultural exports have been estimated to have increased to 9.4% and imports increased at approximately 6.9% still the effects of NAFTA on the Mexican Agricultural sector are in dispute. While some agrue that it has been profitable others raise the point that it has been devastating on the peasants. (Rothstein.Jesse,& Scott.Robert). DEINDUSTRIALIZATION AND OTHER CONCERNS: Arguments regarding the 'Validity" or 'Truth" of NAFTA have been going on for a long time. The question often had been raised that NAFTA is not really a "free Trade agreement" but rather that it is " Government Managed Trade Agreement" the reason behind this question is that it is not really free but rather it is something that inhibits free trade by implementing other level of bureaucracy on top of national governments. Canada regarding their water,and Canadian DeForestations done to meet the fuel demands has disputes with NAFTA saying that once they sell something as a commodoty it will be impossible for them to stop its sale in the future. There have also been concerns that it will lead to deindustrialization in the United States. There have been many concerns that NAFTA will destroy many manufacturing jobs, as companies moved into Mexico to take advantage of cheap labor. It is estimated that from 1994 to 2001 United states manufacturing sector invested an average of 2.2 billion a year in factories in Mexico compared to the 200 billion invested domestically in the United States and an aver average of $16 billion invested annually by the rest of the world in manufacturing in Mexico. In mexico it has been estimated to have had very drastic effects again. NAFTA has been said to have distroyed farmers and their jobs. The influx has siad to have decreased the price of Mexican corn down an estimated 70% , internal corn demand has increased beyond Mexico's sufficiency, and imports have become necessary, far beyond the quotas Mexico had originally negotiated. Perhaps the rise in corn prices due to increased ethanol demand will improve the situation of corn farmers in Mexico. The most effected by the implementation of NAFTA as indicated by its various other effects was and is set to be the Job markets in the three member countries. Whether that has beena positive or a negative effect is still under dispute.The year before NAFTA the U.S. unemployment rate averaged close to seven percent. Now, the U.S. unemployment rate is now at five and a half percent. The fall in the unemployment rate has not been due to any rise in the number of discouraged workers not counted as unemployed: more than nine million net new jobs have been created ever since. There is no sign of any such effect. The inflation-adjusted wages of America's workers have except near the top of the income, distribution stagnated for more than two decades, but not because the U.S. has been losing "good jobs." median wages have stagnated because the inflation-adjusted pay rates for already-existing jobs have fallen, not because the new jobs created have been low-paying jobs. Of course, the benefits of NAFTA to the U.S. have also been small. Mexico's economy is comparable in size to that of metropolitan Los Angeles. Perhaps production in capital goods-making industries is marginally higher, and perhaps a few tens or hundreds of thousands of additional U.S. workers will be employed making capital goods for export to Mexico than if NAFTA had not been implemented; but if so then domestic interest rates are also marginally higher, and fewer U.S. citizens are making capital goods for domestic use. There never was any reason to think that NAFTA would have any significant effect on aggregate employment in the United States increased imports from Mexico have displaced some American workers. There have been applications to the Labor Department for the transitional training and job search funds that were established to assist U.S. workers adversely affected by NAFTA. Through the end of 1995, about 35 such petitions were being filed a month, and about 2,000 workers each month have been added to those who have claimed aid under these programs. THE JOB MARKET EFFECTS ON EXPORTS AND IMPORTS: Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Mexico, and Canada went into effect, trade within North America has increased dramatically. Exports from the United States to Mexico have risen 150% and exports to Canada are up 66%. This much is beyond dispute. This is because NAFTA and other trade agreements have also increased U.S. imports from Canada and Mexico and by quite a lot more than exports. Since 1993, America's trade deficit with its North American trading partners (exports minus imports) has ballooned from $16 billion to $82 billion annually. Employment in virtually all U.S. manufacturing industries has declined since NAFTA went into effect. Counting jobs that actually left the United States plus those that would have been created if not for rising imports, Economic Policy Institute EPI estimates that NAFTA caused a net loss of 440,000 U.S. jobs. In fact, during the 1990s, the overall U.S. trade deficit quadrupled, resulting in a net loss of 3 million jobs. Of course, in a large and complex economy, trade is only one of many factors that affect job creation, and its influence is difficult to isolate. As trade expanded during the 1990s, for example, the United States also experienced an investment boom that created jobs faster than rising imports destroyed them; overall, the number of jobs in the United States has risen by 28 million since 1994. Even today in the United States economy it is said that an estimated two million employees workers lose their jobs every month. Thus, NAFTA-related churning of the employment market caused perhaps one out of every thousand job separations in 1995. The U.S. would almost surely be a better place if it had more stable employment, and if individual employers thus saw their strong collective interest in training workers. But NAFTA contribution to the churning of the U.S. job market is orders of magnitude less than the statistical error in the monthly employment reports. Since its implementation in 1994 there has been a great amount of debate on what type of effect NAFTA has had on American Jobs and the American Job market overall. The effect is measured by the number of jobs that are created and the number of jobs that are destroyed is used as a tool to often narrate the trade policy impact on the economy of North America. But the measurement is by far not fully correct, as most of the estimations are based on errors and suffer highly by serious over sights which vary from the neglect to understand the difference between dissimilar industries and the failing to adjust for the effect of inflation on international trade. Furthermore most estimation is done on the basis of only viewing exports and neglecting the imports. In order to get a view and a clear one at that of NAFTA effect both imports and exports industry level trade, pricing and demographic data needs to be used. It has been seen that net export reduction to Mexico has resulted in an estimated 227 United States Jobs being lost and the reduction in export rate to Canada has resulted in approximately 167 % of jobs in United States Being lost. It is also found that NAFTA has eliminated significant numbers of jobs for women and members of minority groups, as well as white males. As mentioned above export rate reduction to Canada and Mexico under NAFTA measurements have however suggested that real export to Mexico has grown at various stages to 31% and to approximately 24% at various stages with Canada. Import growth however has been far more dramatic 87% with Mexico and 33% with Canada. Although NAFTA adherents claimed the agreement would create new jobs, growing imports from Mexico and Canada have cost the U.S. more jobs than exports have generated. While increased exports to Mexico created many jobs, this growth was more than offset by the jobs displaced by an increase in imports from Mexico. Similarly, increased exports to Canada generated many jobs, but these were dwarfed by jobs displaced by Canadian imports. On the whole, imports from Mexico and Canada destroyed a gross total of over 700 job opportunities. Most of the merchandise trade is made up of manufactured good to be more precise it makes up at least 76% of all merchandise trade of the United States. Although only a small percent of United States labor force works in manufacturing the NAFTA job changes in this sector were over approximately 70%. The manufacturing sector is an important for non-college or only high school level educated workers, those who have lesser opportunities to get high wage jobs in other areas of the economies especially in North America. Those individual are immeasurably represented in the manufacturing area and therefore are hit the hardest by job loss especially a 70% estimated loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector. None the less in spite of their below the average of their non-college education levels the workers in the manufacturing sector earn significantly more than those workers who work in other sectors of the economy and the NAFTA job loss was targeted at high wages jobs. Since 1979 it has been seen that the real wage structure of the United States economy has moved significantly downwards and am alarming number of workers have slipped into the lower income or below average income limits. Workers who found new jobs in the growing economy also faced great rather drastic reductions in wages, with an estimated average earnings level dropping down 16% the only new jobs that will take rise are estimated to me most likely in the service industry. Prospects of NAFTA regarding burning issues such as the effects on the broom industry in Iowa and the citrus growers in Florida have prompted extensive research to see its effects on the different other variables of the three member countries. An attempt is made to calculate the direct and indirect effects, sector by sector, of eliminating barriers to trade. These estimates can be based on the existing stock of capital and labor, or an allowance can be made for induced new investment and a higher capital stock. Once the trade effects have been computed, the number of jobs created or destroyed in each sector can be derived. The sectors impacts can then be aggregated to calculate the economy wide impact on trade and employment. It has been said that Canada will go through least of all changes as a result of becoming a member of NAFTA out of the three member states. Canada has lost 15% of its manufacturing jobs, and Canada's economy has been in a recession, with unemployment at 11% in December of 1992. In Canada, NAFTA has not had much popular support, but still was signed by former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and passed by the Canadian Parliament. Canadian manufacturing has blamed the United States' lack of labor unions for industrial moves from Canada to the United States, resulting in a loss of Canadian jobs. Because a lesser amount of Americans workers belong to labor unions than Canadian workers, Canadian manufacturers could move to the US and save on wage costs and taxes. Canada's unemployment problems and its recession, which have roots dating back to the installment of the Canada-US FTA, may have another cause: American business expansion into the Canadian market. An influx of less expensive American imports would report for a fall in Canadian manufacturing and a rise in American manufacturing between 1988 and 1991. For the short time that Canada has been participating in free trade, it has not benefited from the experience. It is seen over all that Canada needs NAFTA and it really can't afford to pass it by as any refraining towards it could cost Canada to wash its hands permanently or to some significant extent to threaten its estimated 170 billion Dollar trade with United States. Had Canada no joint NAFTA it would have greatly suffered because both United States and Mexico would have joint it together and the rule over that existing market would have been in the hands of the two countries with Canada only having to make do with the throw offs. Even now Canada needs this place and these opportunities in the market in fact it needs them more than United States and Mexico does and would have seriously have put its self at a disadvantage had it withdrawn from the agreement. Much of the criticism has been from America as its biggest fear is that jobs would be lost when American manufacturing companies would relocate to Mexico to take full advantage of the lower wage and higher labor force there. The United States is considered the HIGH or the BIG player in NAFTA its annual GDP is approximately 10 times and 20 bigger from Mexico and Canada respectively the United States has been trying to make up losses in the recent years unlike Canada and it is not hoping to increase its position in the global economy as drastically as Mexico has intended or hoped. The only thing that has been a point of focus with the United States regarding NAFTA is the basic idea behind NAFTA that is to increase the lines of trade with its neighboring countries. As much as the United States have been increasing or making their economics better on accounts of the United States and Canada Free Trade Agreement it has resulted in The United States and Mexico also indulging in and enjoying free and increased trade. Basically NAFTA will be putting on paper sort of legally or openly acknowledging something that has been going on between The United States and Mexico for a long time, for the past decade or even more. Some American and some Mexican industries have had factories situated on the Mexican and United States Border and the factories on the Mexican side usually hire cheap labor to assemble American Manufactured parts into finished products. The finished goods are then sent back to United States and now thanks to NAFTA that is done tariff free. NAFTA has kept the rate in increase in trade between the two member countries at a steady rise over the last 5 years approximately. Thus it is seen that with tariff lost on Mexican sent items the United States industry will not have a lot of difficulty in expanding into Mexico as the export of American products will be cheaper more goods will be able to be shipped and the American goods will be able to compete with the local goods in the open markets in Mexico. And with the rate or the virtual non-existence of tariff lower scale or small businesses will find it easier to export their respective goods to Mexico and hence increase or expand their businesses. Simultaneously it will be seen that Mexican industries will flood their ways into American markets, and the industries on the American side which will not be able to compete at the same pace or with the same productivity as Mexican produced goods will be at a very big disadvantage and could very much find themselves disappearing from the local or domestic market completely. There is no doubt that effects like this will cause a lot of un-employment but it is estimated that the actual ammount of displacement will be lesser if sucessful expansion of other industries takes place in Mexico by American industries. It has been mentioned earlier that Americans fear that there will be massive job loss due to NAFTA as industries will migrate to Mexico to take advantage of the lower wages over there, it is however to be seen that in order to build up a stable enouh work force it is essential that companies, factories and businesses start to offer more than just what the minimum wage is to their workers and that they should be more willing to help their employees in more wyas than just giving them their wages, for example help in the area that could secure a better standard of living so as to give rise to a certain degree of loyalty with in the working staff. Comodoties and other necessaties such as housing, schooling and transportation all these things are in short supply as compared to their demand and need if the above mentioned are offered by companies and factories on both sides respectively it would result in lower rate on un-employment or immigration on the parts of workers and ultimately full industries. Another thing that NAFTA will benefit the member countries in is worker safety andlobor rights, with the passage and implementation of NAFTA such issues will no longer be compromised like they were in the Birder side factories where working conditions are poor and waset dumping is an end of the day ritual. Factories would not need to relocate to Mexico to take advantage of the lower rate of minimum wage if the aboe mentioned elements were kept in mind and being offered. If wage was the only thing that was necessary or looked upon by both workers and employers then countries such as bangladesh ethopia would be doing a lot better where productivity is concerned on accounts of these countries being ones which are booming in low wage industries. (Rothstein.Jesse,& Scott.Robert) CONCLUSION: The United states implemented NAFTA in an attempt to elevate the economy and the rate of employment and the over all quality of life for all citizens. However if one was to look at the above given detailed example of a foreign policy movement which had adverse effects it would be easy to see that such foreign policy movements can back fire and cause bad out comes. Bombings at US embassys situated in different countries are one way oin which countries retaliate when such cases occur. And the bombings in the year 1998 on the US embassys in Tanzania and kenya are also examples of such movements. After the above mentioned bombings, the US has begun to take more calculated steps when it comes to the the formulation and implementing of foreign policies. The rise and increase in security when it comes to man power and guards at the embassys all over the world has no doubt been doubled and checking has become stricter. But a major security step taken by the US has been caution where relationships and agreements is concerned. Those countries where us freign policy and its resultig agreements have caused harm, the US has implemented new policies or provided the necessary ammendments to make up for bad outcomes. REFERENCES: * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement * http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2003/0103dollar.html Nora Lustig Claudia,& Sebastian Edwards. Labor Markets in Latin America: Combining Social Protection with Market Flexibility. Washington, DC. 1997 Rothstein.Jesse,& Scott.Robert. NAFTA CASUALTIES: Effects on jobs of Minorities, Women and Men. Pearson education 482, F.I.E PatParganj, Delhi India110092. 1995. Read More