Talk:North American Free Trade Agreement/Archive 1

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Contents

Why was NAFTA formed?

I can't find the reason for the formation of NAFTA anywhere. Does anyone happen to know? - Raimu

Notes

Note to Saxifrage and Nissi Kim: ____ The edits on the economic effects of NAFTA ought to remain. I grant you that blogs are not reliable sources, but the OECD is an internationally recognized source that works with the likes of Statistics Canada. The fact that data mined from the OECD is reported on a blog doesn't make that data any less reliable. If a student newspaper writes that 2+2=4, are they any less reliable than a mainstream newspaper? The facts are there, and if you had taken the time to read the series, you would see that the data are not made up, but taken from the OECD's 78th Annual Economic Outlook. --23:27, 19 May 2006 67.68.234.2

Although the blogs may have facts, it's not proper. Find something with the same data/info but from a more reliable source and note that. Don't use blogs please.--Nissi Kim 02:44, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

The data mined is raw and not specific to NAFTA. The blog reference aggregates the statistics relevant to NAFTA. You would be hard-pressed to find it somewhere else, because the research is original, and does not derive from a previous data-mining effort with the OECD's data.

Note to Kingturtule: that would be the FTA (not to be confused with FTAA) between the US and Canada. A precursor to NAFTA, but not the same. It's more like an ancestor of NAFTA rather than NAFTA being an adult version of the FTA. Hope that clears it up - LeCentre, for Centrerion Canadian Politics

No report on UPS suing Canada about alleged unfair competition with Canada Post? From UPS and others.

As I recall, the Canada-U.S. part of NAFTA started around 1990. 1994 was when Mexico was brought into the mix. Kingturtle 22:42 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

Copyright notice from the NAFTA Secretiat site. There was a suggestion on the article page that all the data on that site is free. It is pretty free, but thought I'd put a link to their copyright notice so you can judge, if you wish, if its GFDL compatible. Pete 10:33, 10 Oct 2003 (UTC)

prescription drugs

U.S. citizens go to canada to buy the same drugs at a cheaper price. And it is considered illegal to do so. But doesn't NAFTA say there is free trade? Kingturtle

NAFTA does not establish absolute free trade, there are many exceptions (health care and culture for example)

04:30, 6 Apr 2004 (UTC)

And of course anything that the US thinks would put it at a disadvantage, like softwood lumber. DJ Clayworth 14:22, 16 August 2005 (UTC)

Softwood lumber trade is not among the exceptions. The tariffs levied by the US on softwood lumber are illegal.

NAFTA facts

I'm not sure the best way to incorporate the items in this list into this article. But here are some "facts" I scraped off the net concerning NAFTA.

  • NAFTA was originally a Republican initiative.
  • First advanced as an idea by Ronald Reagan in his presidential campaign of 1980.
  • In one of his last acts as President, Bush (41) signed the completed agreement on December 17, 1992, and forwarded it to Congress, where it awaited the new President.
  • 08 December 1993 President Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law
  • On November 8, 1994, George W. Bush (43) was elected to the first of his two terms as Governor of Texas. As governor he supported NAFTA. --Buster 07:29, Jul 14, 2004 (UTC)

NAFTA was pushed in with Canada at the height of it's right wing politics with Mulroney and with Reagan, you figure out what the agenda of this damn thing is. Roley

You clearly have no idea what economics are about if you think George W. Bush supports free trade. Conservatives have always been traditionally protectionist and the current American administration is the best example. The problem with NAFTA is not that it's "too much" for free trade, on the contrary it has too many exceptions which are a disadvantage to Mexican producers (e.g. massive agriculture subsidies to benefit American farmers). If you looked around the net with more objective eyes you would see other interesting "facts" like that the current Canadian Liberal governement supports the agreement (it opposed it but changed its mind after seeing the positive effects on employment) as well as most of the provinces, including Quebec which is usually not the first pushing the Republican "agenda".
You clearly missed the implication in the original post that NAFTA was pushed for pro-big-business reasons, which supports your assertion that it fails to promote free trade and contains too many loopholes favourable to the USA. Whether this is true or not, I cannot say, not being an economics major. However, the most vocal Canadian supporters of NAFTA are either Conservatives or in big business, which tends to support that view of what its role is in trade. — Saxifrage | ☎

Someone should add something about the controversial chapter 11 of nafta. --63.206.119.217 01:04, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

George W. Bush does support free trade. Bush said he would seek “fast-track” negotiating status from Congress to expand free trade in the Western Hemisphere: “I will work to create an entire hemisphere in free trade,” he said. “I will work to extend the benefits of NAFTA from the northernmost Alaska to the tip of Cape Horn.” He said he wanted to build on NAFTA to bring other countries throughout Latin America Meanwhile, the Bush campaign distributed a policy statement that said he supports admission of China and Taiwan to the WTO.

GDP


The right wing (in america at least) is plit into two factions. Nationalistic protectionists (National Socialists and other Klan/Neo-nazi types would also fit into this catagory) who are the diehard opponents to globalization of any kind and desire a return to isolationism and then you have the buiseness Republicans (who really have almost all of the power within the right wing anyway) who are the most hardcore advocates of Free Trade and unrestrained global capitalism. Our current president is firmly a buiseness republican and even if he occasionally pays lip service to the isolationist conservative branch of the right wing.

In reality there is very little difference between the buiseness factions of the republican and democratic parties, So it is a bit if you simply look at the fact that Bill clinton (buiseness faction of the democratic party) signed the US onto NAFTA as well as the WTO.

Concerning the politics of the current president it would be advisable to consider that he also signed into existence CAFTA. (Central American Free Trade Agreement)

Bush said he would seek “fast-track” negotiating status from Congress to expand free trade in the Western Hemisphere: “I will work to create an entire hemisphere in free trade,” he said. “I will work to extend the benefits of NAFTA from the northernmost Alaska to the tip of Cape Horn.” He said he wanted to build on NAFTA to bring other countries throughout Latin America Meanwhile, the Bush campaign distributed a policy statement that said he supports admission of China and Taiwan to the WTO.

"NAFTA Plus / The Future"

I'm removing this section. "NAFTA Plus" is a proposition of Mexico's President Vicente Fox that has limited support in the USA and virtually none in Canada. [1], [2], [3]

(IMHO, there's actually negative support for it in Canada, which has always been wary of becoming the "51st state" of the USA.) AS IT SHOULD BE!!!!

Not only that, but the text is a copyvio [4] of an article in The National Post of Canada, which is a notably right-wing newspaper. (The original article is no longer online.)

Perhaps a total rewrite is in order (I notice there is a better-written version in History, but it's still factually incorrect) that would explain Fox' take on this. However, this suggestion of his about NAFTA is a non-event except for the political and public reaction to his audacity in suggesting it without consulting the rest of NAFTA. So, not being encyclopedic at all, I think removal is best. — Saxifrage | ☎ 07:07, Dec 26, 2004 (UTC)


Is in order a rewrite of NAFTA plus and it is a fact, im sorry for your leftish sentiments but what i posted is true, obviously you didnt read gthe original article that it was much more complete than my summarize.

Is a fact, there is a group of prominent politicians from the 3 countries that this year on june will present the complete text for a NAFTA plus and it has the support of the governments of the 3 countries, even when there are people that is not agree. (unsigned, but by Kardrak)

If it's a fact, then provide uncontenstable source(s) that show it's a fact. If you can't produce evidence for a controversial claim, it does not belong on Wikipedia, according to policy. Further, the text you inserted is copyright the National Post, and as such it is impermissible for Wikipedia to publish it.
On another note, in case you were unaware, I'd like to inform you that it's bad form to remove other people's comments from any Talk page. Please avoid doing so in the future.  — Saxifrage | ☎ 00:10, Jan 11, 2005 (UTC)

Wrong information about EU

Laws of the European Union are not "superior to national laws". That would imply the existence of a superstate, engulfing all the participating nations, which has always been peremptorily denied by EU authorities. EU laws do require from its members certain adjustments that, in order to be met, ultimately affect national legislature, but failure to comply with EU regulations is "illegal" only within the sphere of influence of the EU itself, meaning that a "rogue member" might be quicked out of the group, but could not be forced to comply (as an example: we citizens of various countries live under the "empire of the law" - our respective national laws - and the law determines rules that outway our wills. So, for instance, no one can choose whether to pay their taxes or not, the will of the law outways our own. That does not happen when sovereign countries are concerned.). Any "superiority" of EU legislation would have to be decided on a country-to-country basis, by the respective national law, which makes the latter ultimately superior, since it is given to each country the creation of, and changing, said national law (if EU regulations were to forbid such alteration, that would not prevent any willing country from altering its laws, although this hypothetical country could loose its membership over this issue - but the national law would eventually prevail). Regards, Redux 01:04, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The above is actually not true. Britain at least has written into its own laws that they cannot conflict with EU laws. DJ Clayworth 14:20, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
As long as there is no common "European constitution", the EU regulations cannot override national law. But national constitutional law can determine that (other) national laws must not conflict with EU regulations (which are formally no laws). Since the national parliaments can revoke such national constitutional laws also, this does not establish a superiority of EU regulations to national laws. Therefore Redux is right here.
If national law is in fact conflicting with an EU regulation, the EU commission can open a procedure against the member state with the aim to impose a (contract) penalty - but the EU cannot declare a national law invalid.--Mecker 09:22, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
I did a small correction concerning this topic. By the way: The EU is not supernational, but supranational. This is a fine, but weighty difference.--Mecker 09:57, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


Actually there is no answer to the question "Does the EU law rule on national laws?", or better is still matter of debate. To have an idea you should have a look at the Van Gend en Loos Case (26/62) and at the Costa Vs Enel Case in which the European Court of Justice affirmed:"“...the law stemming from the Treaty, an independent source of law, could not, because of its special and original nature, be overridden by domestic legal provisions, however framed, without being deprived of its special character as Community law and without the legal basis of the Community itself being called into question.” (Costa Vs Enel case) Anyway you should also read the following articles. They are very interesting and helpful:

Burley and Mattli (1993), “Europe Before the Court”, International Organization, vol. 47

Garret (et al) (1998), “The European Court of Justice, National Governments, and Legal Integration in the European Union, International Organization, Vol. 52

Alter, K. (1996), “European Court's Political Power”, West European Politics Vol 19

Missing citation

The article currently includes: "One controversial aspect of NAFTA is that Canada is required to periodically purchase weapons and military equipment from the US for its military."

Either I've never heard of this controversy, it's not a controversy, or this sentence is factually incorrect. The only hint that Canada might be "required" to purchase arms from the US is references to a document called the Defence Development and Production Sharing Arrangements (DDPSA), of which I can't find a text online, but which is certainly not NAFTA. Unless someone can find a citation, I'm going to remove it as unsubstantiated.

I added the statement. This is what i heard, I was hoping someone could verify it. 209.148.144.117 05:29, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know Canada is not required to purchase arms from anyone - but within the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (and also some NATO agreements) required to standardize some equipment with the US. To purchase from the US is an after-effect of this.--Mecker 09:39, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Recent major edits

Two problems with recent major changes to the article, to be specific, the sections on SPP, Common Security, and Common Prosperity:

  1. The Common Prosperity and Security sections are directly copied from the press release. [5]
  2. None of these sections are about NAFTA.

As such, I am immediately removing the sections titled Common Security and Common Prosperity. If there is no consensus here to keep the section on SPP, I will remove it to a new article linked from "See also".  — Saxifrage | ☎ 23:28, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)

My mistake, they're all copyvios. The SPP section was written by an Associated Press reporter according to the byline on this article. I've removed it as well. The original editor is free to start a non-copyvio article about SPP in its own article, I suppose.  — Saxifrage | ☎ 23:34, Apr 17, 2005 (UTC)

POV

212.32.73.87's major edits have effectively hijacked the entire controversy section into a pro-globalization argument. The user seems to rely entirely on Establishment sources, for instance stating that "While critics of NAFTA have tended to point to alleged detrimental effects on the Mexican economy, the vast majority of those critics reside in the United States or Canada. In Mexico itself, both the long-time PRI government of Salinas, and the opposition led by present President Vincente Fox, have been strong supporters." This is to assume that because two wealthy political parties are in favor of something, everyone in the country must be. In general he tends to overemphasize Establishment economists and discredit everyone else. I don't even know where to start in fixing this. Sarge Baldy 22:17, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

I'm tempted to revert the whole lot of it as uncited original research. The amount of weasel words is astounding. I'm sure 87 doesn't realise that it fails basic Wikipedia standards as they are an IP. Just because someone writes a lot doesn't mean they have more of a voice in consensus. Does anyone have any contentions with a blanket reversion?  — Saxifrage | ☎ 22:00, July 27, 2005 (UTC)
I wouldn't disagree. If there was anything valuable in the changes made, they were completely overshadowed by the complete butchering of any semblance of neutrality in the article. In matters as sensitive as this, it's absolutely nuts to rewrite the entire thing to entirely reflect one's own controversial perspective. Sarge Baldy 23:21, July 27, 2005 (UTC)
I've gone ahead and done so, so as to keep people from simply building off the weaselly strand. Sarge Baldy 22:26, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

The "feminist scholars" nonsense in the controversy page isn't cited or referenced and uses a lot of slanted wording. Someone should write a counterpoint to this. Trenchcoatjedi 18:23, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Attempted to resolve that.. see my edits. If anyone has any further issues, I'd appreciate it if she/he contacts me either on this talk page or on mine. --Iliaskarim 17:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

This page reads like a critique of NAFTA. It's not extremely informative. You will do justice to it and add legitimacy if you try to avoid the evident anti-NAFTA POV or if you balance it with pros and cons. How has canadas economy faired since the signing of NAFTA? Quite well. And its economic and industrial policies are still autonomous.

The Passage of NAFTA

NAFTA side negotiations were agreed to in late summer of 1993, then NAFTA was voted on by the house of rep and the senate (as per Title 19 U.S.C. Chapter 17 Section 2903)in November of 1993. It become officially active on January 1, 1994.

I agree. The opening paragraph is misleading... How could Bill Clinton sign the agreement in December of 1992, before he was president?

Bill Clinton did not sign the treaty. Too bad the "History of the Implementation" section was deleted. I will try to recover it. Anyway, George H.W. Bush signed the treaty on 17 December 1992, with his "fast-track" priviliges. Clinton, however (and as part of his electoral campaign) promised to review the treaty before its ratification. Legally, he couldn't do it [it had already been signed], so he complemented the treaty; that is, he conditioned NAFTA's ratification to the signing of two more treaties the NAAEC (North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation) and the NAALC (North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation). Mexico and Canada "agreed" to them (or were forced to agree to them to prevent the US from rescinding the first agreement), and all three agreementswere ratified by the US Conress in November 1993. In theory, NAFTA (the agreement) was signed in 1992, ratified jointly with NAAEC and NAALC in 1993, and came into effect in 1994. The North American Free Trade Area (abbreviated NAFTA too, though it might be confusing) is the area created by all three agreements. --Alonso 05:22, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

NAFTA, good for Mexicans or not ?!?

On the Mexico page, they say that the wages in Mexico have grown since 1995 due to NAFTA (and mexican economy got stronger),while this page says the contrary.What am I missing ? Stefan Udrea 12:20, 1 August 2005 (UTC)

Probably the other page is weighing economic "progress" differently. Poverty has been sharply increasing in Mexico since NAFTA, evidenced by the increased flocking of Mexicans into the United States. If you weigh mean wages instead of median though, you get a different picture, since the wealthy may disproportionately benefit enough to offset lowered wages elsewhere (whereas measuring the median you find out what the average individual earns). So to answer your question, I would reply that it's very good for some Mexicans but fairly bad for the majority. Sarge Baldy 20:47, August 1, 2005 (UTC)
This comment by Sarge Baldy was written over 6 months ago, so I do not know if my response is still relevant. Nonetheless I must say that I oppose his "evidences". In the first place, poverty has not been "sharply increasing in Mexico since NAFTA", quite on the contrary, according to the World Bank latest review, poverty rates have been falling, mainly rural poverty, which has dramatically decreased from 42% to 27% in the 2000-2004 period. Even in the controversial "maquiladora" sector, (which traditionally has had the lowest wages in Mexico), the book "NAFTA Revisited" of the Institute of International Economics (2005), show that real income per worker is 15.5% greater than it was in 1994 (p. 100), which again disproves his statement that wages have lowered. Citing another source, "NAFTA Lessons for LA and the Caribbean" by the World Bank conclude that NAFTA has been positive for Mexico, though not enough for economic convergence with its northern neighbors (quite an obvious fact given the magnitude of the initial economic disparity). In fact, most of the current concenrs about NAFTA, according to both sources, are not income inequality nor "increasing poverty", for there is no evidence of such (and I should add a third source: Virtous Cycles, of the World Bank which shows that Mexico is amongst the few Latin American countries, behind Chile, that are in line with the Millenum Goals of Poverty Reduction); the greaest challenge is promoting innovation and research in Mexico, as well as modernizing the energy sector. I strongly recommend these three readings for a comprehensive analysis of the effects of NAFTA 11 years after it was implemented. --J.Alonso 21:40, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

"Arguments against this... In reality..." paragraph

The following appears in the article from a recent edit by 64.157.32.1 (talk • contribs):

Arguements against this are that NAFTA is blamed for a number of Mexican ills, including labor union and agricultural decline, immigration, and the Zapatista rebellion. In reality, PRI-controlled labor unions were already a source of frustration, and prior agricultural changes in 1992 are a better place to look for agricultural decline and subsequent migration to Mexican cities and the US border. The Zapatista rebellion was unrelated to NAFTA, which had not had time to make any lasting impact when the rebellion began. The illegal immigration was more a product of high birth rates than lay-offs.

This sounds like spoon feeding, apologist POV, and original research to me. However, because I do have an anti-globalisation bias, I don't want to revert this outright. Rather, what does everyone else think? Certainly the wording and lack of citations are terrible, but is there anything that can be taken out of this to improve the article?  — Saxifrage | ☎ 20:44, August 6, 2005 (UTC)

Since no-one has objected for ten days, I've removed the passage as POV and unsourced.  — Saxifrage | ☎ 05:57, August 18, 2005 (UTC)


-In Mexico the NAFTA or TLCAN has a nice appreciation by mexicans, but at the end, it only make the rich people richer and poor people miserably and it's clear that is not USA fault, but Mexico government of the time

my PoV findings

notice - I'm writing this before I read any of the discussion. I read the NPOV tag and decided to go through the article before seeing the arguments and write my note.

first, I dont think that there is any need to mention that Mulroney was a conservative. That just seems like a liberal trying to say that NAFTA is supported only by one party.

some of the stuff on the softwood dispute is just plain grandstanding. "The debate includes pulling Canada out of NAFTA" never heard that and I follow politics very closley here in canada. "Some analysts have called the failure of the U.S. to abide by the treaty the greatest American affront to Canada since the War of 1812." which ones. again, never heard that.

the contervery saction mentions no good aspects of NAFTA, only bad ones. Conterversies have two sides, not just one.

Chapter 11 is an issue I've heard of in canada, but about US multinationals sueing our government. That at least deserves a mention.

the canada section seems fine

the overall section needs to mention some of the mexican and US disputes, I know Gephardt dealt with this during the primaires.

Pellaken 07:08, 20 September 2005 (UTC)


if I dont get any comments I'm going to edit the page and remove the tag. Pellaken 22:21, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

These are good observations. Go for it and let's see what we've got when you're done!  — Saxifrage | ☎ 00:54, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Agreed. HistoryBA 01:45, 27 September 2005 (UTC)


how's that? Pellaken 17:57, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

additionally,

  • we first site that in some areas in mexico wages have fallen 20% (i think juarez should be mentioned here), and that ag. subsidies in the US have driven farmers out of buisness ( i read somwhere it was in the thousands...simliar to Americass depression in the 1930's...i need to find sources first, though)...but then we claim two sentences later that the living standards have been raised "especially in Mexico", which I think might be nonsense. Does someone have sources to back that up?

Also, I'm not sure that citing think tanks is good...if you do, you should clarify within the sentence that it is a think tank you are citing. Remember, they don't have to be peer reviewed or checked by anyone but their own interests...whether their power comes from huge corporations with mulibillion dollar investments (Cato), or unions looking out for workers with multimillion dollar invesments. Thanks, -Jake

structure

I think the lead section is too long. There should be a short intro (1 or 2 paragraphs), the rest could go under an "origins" section or something... No time to do that now though. (What am I doing on Wikipedia if I have no time? Good question!)--Michaël 20:10, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree with that. The first paragraph is fine; the second one (and no more than two) should integrate notions from the current three following the first. E Pluribus Anthony | talk | 20:58, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism?

Would this count as vandalism? Someone put an interesting text at the top of this page. Although I don't like NAFTA, this is Wikipedia, and it's supposed to be non-biased.

Yes, that was definitely vandalism. — Saxifrage ✎ 01:52, 16 February 2006 (UTC)


US president Denis O'Sullivan, eh? 66.135.106.50 19:21, 29 November 2006 (UTC) Cy

Unreferenced

Reviewing the recent major additions I nearly brought them here for debate since they are unreferenced, but a quick look at the rest of the article showed that, except for the table of figures, there is only one reference in the entire article. This is clearly insufficient, so I think putting {{unreferenced}} at the top of the article until it is properly referenced is appropriate. — Saxifrage ✎ 20:34, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Removed text

As a consequence, in December 2001, U.S. and Canada a NAFTA wide security zone and announced a “smart border” accord to speed commuters and truckers by the use of electronic passes through the check points.

Wasn't this cancelled? -- Beland 02:54, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe it was... I think it may have been highjacked by other concerns, such as the Western Hemisphere Travel (?) Initiative of the bush regime. Check out the CBSA website Canada Border Services Agency --Coderedck 07:41, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Removed text2

In 2002, an agreement was reached with Mexico for incremental changes in the US migration policy.[1]

Was this anything more than political rhetoric? Did anything actually change as the result of this agreement? Have the number of legal Mexican immigrants been increased? -- Beland 02:57, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not very knowledgeable about this area of NAFTA, but this seems like it was edited because of your political views, rather than a fact. If there was actually an accord or something of that nature signed, this should go back in. - LC

Expansion / neutrality

Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.
This article has been tagged since January 2007.

Some sections have the feeling of a haphazard collection of facts from various viewpoints, which do not provide proper context or a coherent and neutral perspective.

Chapter 11 section:

  • What was the outcome of the Methanex case? There is a big difference between a country passing an environmental law to intentionally restrict trade from another country, and a general environmental regulation which affects both domestic and international sales. Which did the courts say this was? This case seems to be a propaganda point of environmentalists concerned about NAFTA, but the ability for states to enforce environmental regulations seems largely unaffected by NAFTA in the years since it was passed. Was this case overblown? Did the later environmental agreement make any difference?
  • On what grounds was the Metalclad case decided? What was the discriminatory aspect of the law? This info should probably also be added to the Metalclad article.
  • "if they feel a regulation or government decision adversely affects their investment" does not sound like an accurate summary. What does the actual treaty say?
  • What Canadian company was trying to extract gas from Sable Island? Who threatened to sue and why? Why should we care?

Canada section:

  • Given the amount of time that the treaty has been in effect and the few if any environmental problems that have resulted, it seems the "fears" initially raised were relatively unfounded. Certainly we have not seen the wholesale "destruction of Canada's water supply", etc.
  • The "commodity" clause is not very well explained; a quote from the treaty would help a lot to convey the original intent. The claim currently in the article also does not seem to be factually accurate, depending on what the definition of "commodity" is.
  • What was the winning justification for the MMT case, and what was the American company involved? Because of sovereign immunity, companies cannot sue for every government action that hurts business. There must have been some discriminatory aspect to the case which is not explained here, but which is important to give a balanced account.

Travel and migration section:

  • Who are the "small group of professionals" and what "mobility rights" were they granted? This sentence makes the treaties in question sound elitist, and so it sounds biased.

-- Beland 02:57, 28 April 2006 (UTC)


"There is a big difference between a country passing an environmental law to intentionally restrict trade from another country, and a general environmental regulation which affects both domestic and international sales. Which did the courts say this was?"
You're presenting a False dilemma. That section implicitly mentions "a Californian ban on MTBE, a substance that had found its way into many wells in the state". This presents a third option beyond the two you present. Protecting the health of Californians does not directly have anything to do with trade and sales.
The legal issue presented by that section, in its current form, is the implications of giving corporations the power, under NAFTA, to sue governments that pass *any* laws that impact their bottom line, regardless of the intent and purpose of that law. Not only that, NAFTA's only concern under such litigation is the bottom line.
That said, there are some POV edits that can be made....... I'll fiddle a bit with it.
(Antelope In Search Of Truth 19:49, 4 May 2006 (UTC))

The "History of the Implementation" section seems biased against Liberals. See the last few lines of the section, it reads like something out of a pro-Conversation pamphlet.

Chapter 11

For completeness, the Chapter 11 section should probably include the Loewen Group's Chapter 11 suit against the United States. A Mississippi jury (I believe) awarded $500 million in damages against the Loewen Group (a Canadian funeral home operator) based on contracts worth $5 million (i.e., nearly all of it was punitive damages--a result that many observers saw as ludicrous). The Mississippi Supreme Court refused to waive the standard requirement that the defendant post a bond worth 125% of the damages awarded before appeal. Because Loewen did not have that kind of cash on hand, forcing Loewen to settle the case for $175 million. Loewen subsequently sued the United States for $725 million under Chapter 11 to compensate it for what it considered the illegal appropriation of its assets. I think Loewen ended up declaring bankruptcy, but I don't know the final outcome of the case.

I believe this case is important as the first challenge to the actions of a judicial system under Chapter 11.

See, e.g., [6], [7], [8]

Jarbru 21:22, 19 May 2006 (UTC)


Removed From Economics

(Editors please see discussion for why this has been restored to an earlier edit). According to data from the OECD, macroeconomic indicators such as Canada's GDP, unemployment rate and savings rates have all changed significantly since NAFTA was implemented. Though, as mentioned above, these changes aren't necessarily attributable to NAFTA, there may be a link. The changes and research have been published here: NAFTA's Impact: Introduction to the Research. The page explains the research's basis and links to the statistics, such as changes in GDP and the unemployment rate.

About Mexican Communists

I think that the freedom of markets is a vantage, most of all, for the poors--87.17.30.170 17:15, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Travel and Migration Section

I was wondering what if this really fits into the article as it doesn't really relate to NAFTA but to actual travel between the USA and Mexico/Canada and how it has been affected by the 9/11 attacks. If no one objects I'll delete. Grundler1 07:40, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Date discrepancy in US-Mexico Section

President Bush and Fox actually met on September 5 2001 as well as on the 6th. Currently, the article says they met on September 10 which is factually incorrect. Check out whitehouse.gov and look at the press releases —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ezekiel6789 (talk • contribs) 05:19, 14 December 2006 (UTC).

History of implementation

Who deleted the history of implementation section and why?? --Alonso 04:31, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

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