NAFTA has three member States, namely Canada, Mexico and United States 1994

Canada and the United States were developed economies with strong traditions of liberal political
and economic policies, while Mexico had neither.

http://www.internationaldemocracywatch.org/index.php/north-american-free-trade-agreement

In September 2018, NAFTA has been renegotiated. This new treaty – known as the United States-
Mexico-Canada Agreement – still needs to be ratified for by every nation and will not go into effect
for several more years.

Under NAFTA, tariffs on imports and exports have been eliminated for products that are made in one
of the three nations. NAFTA also grants most-favored-nation status, which means that all parties
must receive equal treatment, including in foreign direct investment. NAFTA also outlines the
procedures required to resolve trade disputes. The agreement also allows for easy access for
business travelers traveling throughout the three nations.

http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/nafta-countries/

Researchers have defined culture in different ways. For Nakata and Huang (2002), culture is
defined as a system composed of inner elements (e.g., history, identity, beliefs, values and work
view), cultural activities (e.g., roles, art, expression, communication patterns, rules and customs,
technology and material culture), and cultural systems (e.g., religion, politics, economic, law,
health, family, educational, work, and social organization) what shapes individuals within a
group’s behavior as to beliefs, values, and modes of thinking such as notions of fairness

https://www.aabri.com/manuscripts/11752.pdf

MEXICO

Economic

NAFTA produced mixed results. It turned out to be neither the magic bullet
that its proponents had envisioned nor the devastating blow that its critics had
predicted. Mexico did experience a dramatic increase in its exports, from
about $60 billion in 1994 to nearly $400 billion by 2013. The surge in exports
was accompanied by an explosion in imports as well, resulting in an influx of
better-quality and lower-priced goods for Mexican consumers.

Little happened in the labour market that dramatically changed the outcomes
in any country involved in the treaty. Because of immigration restrictions, the
wage gap between Mexico on the one hand and the United States and
Canada on the other did not shrink. The lack of infrastructure in Mexico
caused many U.S. and Canadian firms to choose not to invest directly in that
country. As a result, there were no significant job losses in the U.S. and
Canada and no environmental disaster caused by industrialization in Mexico

The study states that NAFTA helped Mexican manufacturers adapt to U.S. technological
innovations more quickly; likely had positive impacts on the number and quality of jobs; reduced
macroeconomic volatility, or wide variations in the GDP growth rate

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R42965.pdf pg9

Social

One of the more controversial aspects of NAFTA is related to the agricultural sector in Mexico
and the perception that NAFTA has caused a higher amount of Mexican worker displacement in
this sector than in other economic sectors

r. One study estimates these losses to have been over 1 million lost jobs in corn production
between 1991 and 2000.

Mexico began to import more lower-priced products from the United States, many of the
changes can be attributed to Mexico’sdomestic reform measures consisted of privatization efforts
and resulted in increased competition. Measures included eliminating state enterprises related to
agriculture and removing staple price supports and subsidies

Cultural

US

Economy relatively small, primarily because total trade with both Mexico and Canada was
equal to less than 5% of U.S. GDP "Gross Domestic Product" at the time NAFTA went into effect

In some sectors, trade-related effects could have been more significant, especially in those
industries that were more exposed to the removal of tariff and non-tariff trade barriers, such as
the textile, apparel, automotive, and agriculture industries.

A 2003 study estimated that U.S. GDP could experience an increase between 0.1% and 0.5%
upon full implementation of the agreement.

Much of the trade between the United States and its NAFTA partners occurs
in the context of production sharing as manufacturers in each country work
together to create goods. The expansion of trade has resulted in the creation
of vertical supply relationships, especially along the U.S.-Mexico border. The
flow of intermediate inputs produced in the United States and exported to
Mexico and the return flow of finished products greatly increased the
importance of the U.S.-Mexico border region as a production site

Social (mex-usa)

Today, Americans consume twice as much fruit, and three times as many
vegetables, from both Mexico and Canada as we did two decades ago

Food

But while NAFTA has largely meant that we're getting more of our favorite fresh
foods from our next-door neighbors, the USDA suggests that NAFTA is
profoundly transforming the food system in Mexico, sometimes in less healthful
ways.

he biggest change is how much more processed food and American-style

supermarkets our neighbors have been importing. Indeed, American investment
in Mexican food manufacturing — rather than agriculture, for example — has
tripled since 1999, as have sales of American processed food products there.

American companies are also sending Mexico the ingredients to make foods like
high-fructose corn syrup; HFCS exports to Mexico are now 863 times what they
were before NAFTA. And all of that ends upon the shelves of supermarkets,
whose business model relies heavily on processed food. Walmart,
which opened its first Mexican store in 1991, four years after it began selling
groceries, now operates 2,114 stores that offer food in Mexico.

You've likely heard that America's in the middle of a craft beer revolution. Well,
we're also, apparently, swooning for cerveza de Mexico. In 2013, we imported
about 2 million tons of Coronas and Modelos, making beer Mexico's largest
agricultural export to the U.S.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/02/13/385754265/how-nafta-changed-american-and-
mexican-food-forever

clothing
Cultural

Canada , Canadians believe that all people have the same rights and deserve the same respect
regardless of cultural background, gender, race, or religion

The problem is when we get too much, and when it overwhelms our ability to tell
our own stories. With their much-larger production and marketing budgets,
American cultural industries have a great advantage over Canadian media
companies.

It is for this reason that federal and provincial governments have for years
helped to sponsor Canadian cultural content through funding, minimum content
requirements and regulatory measures. The market alone cannot ensure an even
playing field.

For example, the Canadian government believed that Time Warner, a US firm, was engaging in
cultural dumping and thus imposed an excise tax on all foreign magazines sold in Canada that
contain less than 80% Canadian facts (Ferguesson 2008). The Canadian government utilized
formal institutional resources to enacted local content regulations to promote Canadian
ownership of several industries specifically film distribution, radio, and television (Fergusson
2008).

The US is ten times the size of Canada in population and gross domestic product

Canadian population’s strong sense of identity is believed to have lead to engagement in cultural
protectionism
“free trade helped Canada to grow up, to turn its face out to the world, to embrace its future as a
trading nation, [and] to get over its chronic sense of inferiority.”

Wen video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UESPaMk1zdE

Renegotiation

U.S. Pres. Donald Trump came into office in January 2017 determined to
scrap U.S. involvement in the TPP and to renegotiate NAFTA, which he
frequently characterized as the worst trade deal ever made. In his first week in
office he issued an executive order pulling the United States out of the TPP
(though Congress had yet to approve the agreement). Trump then set his
sights on NAFTA, from which he threatened to remove the United States if the
agreement was not renegotiated to his liking.

At the centre of his approach was a promise to bring back more

manufacturing jobs to the United States. Representatives
from Canada, Mexico, and the United States began renegotiating the
agreement in August 2017. However, months of negotiations brought little
progress. Tensions mounted between Canada and the United States after
Trump, in April 2018, announced the imposition of import tariffs on Canadian
steel and aluminum, an action that threatened to start a trade war and
prompted forceful condemnation from Canadian Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau.

At the end of August 2018 Mexico and the United States announced that they
had come to terms on a new trade agreement that preserved much of NAFTA
but introduced a number of significant changes. Under the pressure of being
the odd country out, Canada, in the waning hours of September 30, also
agreed to join the new trade accord, which was branded the United States-
Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Most of the agreement, which still
required approval from the countries’ legislatures, was not set to go into effect
until 2020.
Some of the most prominent terms of the new agreement related to
automobile manufacture. Under the USMCA, in order for a car or truck to be
exempt from tariffs, 75 percent of its components would have to be
manufactured in North America. Under NAFTA, the corresponding
requirement had been only 62.5 percent. The agreement also required that at
least 30 percent of work on tariff-exempt vehicles must have been done by
workers earning at least $16 per hour (significantly more than Mexican
laborers received). Canada reluctantly made concessions that opened access
to its market for dairy products, but it won the preservation of a special dispute
process (Chapter 19) that U.S. negotiators had sought to remove.

Changes on the agreement

 The goal of the new deal is to have more cars and truck parts made in
North America. to qualify for zero tariffs, a car or truck must have 75
percent of its components manufactured in one of the 3 countries. (Past
requirement 62.5%) . Cars and trucks should have at least 30 percent of
the work on the vehicle done by workers earning $16 an hour.
 Canadian government restricts how much dairy can be produced in the
country and how much foreign dairy can enter to keep milk prices high
To ensure Canadian dairy farmers don’t go bankrupt, Canada is keeping
most of its complex system in place, but it is giving greater market share
to U.S. dairy farmers
 The side letters say Canada and Mexico can continue sending about the
same vehicles and parts across the border free of charge, regardless of
whether auto tariffs go into effect down the road. Only parts above that
quota could face tariffs
 Trump’s steel tariffs stay in place (for now). Canada wanted
Trump to stop his 25 percent tariffs on Canadian steel. That didn’t
happen
 Improved labor and environmental rights. The USMCA makes a
number of significant upgrades to environmental and labor
regulations, stipulates that Mexican trucks that cross the border into the
United States must meet higher safety regulations and that Mexican
workers must have more ability to organize and form unions
 Big drug companies gain more footing in Canada. U.S. drug
companies will now be able to sell pharmaceuticals in Canada for 10
years before facing generic competition. That’s up from eight years of
so-called “market protection” now.
 Deal must be reviewed after 6 years
https://www.britannica.com/event/North-American-Free-Trade-Agreement