Research Paper on:
North American Free Trade Agreement and its Relevance

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
is controversial, many believe that it has been a public policy success (Grisworld, 2003). While in general, NAFTA gets a lot of credit, there are however serious criticisms against the  treaty. In fact, since the first mention of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) there has been quite a bit of controversy. The AFL-CIO protested against it in  1997 but that was nothing new. The organization railed against NAFTA in 1993 unsuccessfully (Greenhouse, 1997). While this labor union is concerned with jobs, NAFTA spawns other controversies as  well. There is the unfair match of a large world power and a poor country such as Mexico. How would the Mexican people fare? Then there are environmental issues and  the immigration problems at the southern border. NAFTA has an impact on the United States relations with Mexico as well as how America is seen by the rest of the  world. The implications of NAFTA are numerous. Others claimed that NAFTA would be good for America. In reality, NAFTA has had a positive influence on U.S. exports to Canada and  should continue to draw new companies to that market. Catherine Houghton (1997) explains that if NAFTAs first two years are any indication, the U.S. is on the right track and  further advises expansion to other countries. Many applauded NAFTAs performance after just two years. How has it done in ten? As a trade agreement, it seems to have met  its principal objective of encouraging trade (Grisworld, 2003). Since 1993, the value of two-way U.S. trade with Mexico has increased three-fold, from $81 billion to $232 billion (2003, p.10),  figures that demonstrate that trade is growing twice as fast there as U.S. trade with the rest of the world. Today, Canada and Mexico are presently Americas number one and