nafta?

i'm writing a paper on US involvement in central america. arguing for and against it. however, i'm having a hard time seeing much benefit in US involvement. this seems to be the same basic principle as nafta, so i was hoping that someone could give me some suggestions as to the arguments supporting it?

Haha, I wrote a 15-page paper on this for a final for my Spanish class in high school... :-)

Theoretically, I can see how NAFTA was originally construed as a huge economic positive for our nation.  We are so dependent on Capitalism and free trade in our economy that making it tarriff- free between neighboring nations definitely seems like a positive. 

HOWEVER, that just means that since the companies aren't earning enough money from tarriffs, they need to increase the deficit somewhere else--labor wages!  The maquiladoras (read: sweatshops) along the border in Mexico are killing the Mexican economy, and forcing Mexican citizens to work for less than they deserve and in conditions that would never be acceptable in the United States.  Some argue that these people wouldn't have jobs except for those minimum-wage paying jobs; however, how can someone fairly say that these jobs are fair for a human being?  Just because they dont' live in the US doesn't mean they are any less deserving of the same basic privilages-turned-rights that we expect out of each and every job we have.

I am proud to be a US citizen, I really am.  However, I have yet to see much good in our involvement in Latin America anywhere, either.  Even the Panama Canal had its serious downsides! 

re: #21 - companies do not collect tariffs; governments do -- so eliminating tariffs means less money in government coffers (and therefore does not explain why companies pay foreign workers so little)  In a lot of developing countries, the easiest (or only) tax money to collect is tarriffs -- because of subsistence living, income tax is not a practical option.  So when a developing country goes from say 40-60% tariffs (representing 90-100% of the government's budget) to 0% tariffs, the government has to cut education, health care, everything really except for the military usually.  Without the infrastructure of society, it's hard to see how they will 'advance' even when they obey the IMF and world bank.  They just end up more and more in debt.

re: North America after NAFTA --  my claim is that simple total GDP growth rates are misleading since they imply a "good" or "better" outcome than ??? what? -- following is a small sample of more contextual and therefore relevant information about the outcome of NAFTA thus far, which I think demonstrate its negative impact (and so, sorry, to the OP, I can't give you an argument in favor of it, unless you feel that corporate interests trump all other interests)

One of the main promises of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was that it would create enough jobs to prevent Mexicans from seeking work across the border.  However between 1994 and 2004, 450,000 Mexicans have crossed the border into the U.S., without authorization, every year, on average.  The total, annual number of immigrants from Mexico grew by 65% compared to the previous decade. Undocumented arrivals increasing 160% decade on decade far surpass the number of documented arrivals which have declined 38% over the same period. (1)

NAFTA’s defenders argue that the trade agreement has been good for Mexico by citing Mexico’s average annual GDP growth of 3% since the agreement passed.  This compares favorably to the 2.2% average growth of the "lost decade" 1981-1993, but it is dismal compared to the average annual growth of the previous 20 years,  1961-1980, 6.75%. (2)

In per capita terms, Mexico's GDP grew by an annual average of 1.69% between 1994 and 2006. Again, compared to the "lost decade" or "transition to open market" period of 1981-1993, 0.15% this looks positive. However, from 1961 to 1980, Mexico's per capita GDP grew by 3.56% yearly, on average.  This represents a doubling of per capita GDP, even as Mexico's population doubled during the period.  Mexico would be very close to European living standards today had it continued its previous rate of growth. (3)

According to the Woodrow Wilson institute, "Declining opportunities in rural Mexico have spurred migration to the United States." Although the Mexican rural population makes up only 25% of the total population, it contributes 44% of all migrants to the U.S. (4)

A 2006 comprehensive study found that inflation-adjusted wages for virtually every category of Mexican worker decreased over NAFTA's first six years. The workers that experienced the highest losses of real earnings were employed women with basic education (-16.1%) and employed men with advanced education (-15.6%). (5)

Even in the maquiladora (in-bond assembly) industry, where Mexico had a theoretical "competitive advantage," wages are almost 40% lower than those paid in non-maquiladora manufacturing. Since 2000, hundreds of factories and hundreds of thousands of jobs in this sector have been displaced as China joined the WTO, and Chinese sweatshop exports gained a global market share. This combination of factors has made earning a livelihood virtually impossible for millions of Mexicans, with predictable immigration consequences. (6)

Mexican government data show that the elimination of food security policies under NAFTA led to over 1.3 million Mexican peasant farmers losing their livlihoods as subsidized U.S. food imports flooded the market. While the price paid to Mexican corn farmers fell by about half following NAFTA, the price of tortillas went up 738%.  (7)

Trade liberalization has reduced living standards for the Mexican poor since the 1980s.  Today the minimum wage in Mexico buys only 1/3 of what it was able to buy in 1982. (8)

(1) Passel, Jeffrey, Pew Hispanic Center, "Unauthorized Migrants: Numbers and Characteristics of the Undocumented Population. 2005.
(2) Derived from World Bank's World Development Indicators, 2007.
(3) Ibid
(4) Burnstein, John, "U.S. - Mexico Agricultural Trade and Rural Poverty in Mexico." Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2007.
(5) United Nations, Human Development Report 2007, p. 281.
(6) Salas, Carlos, "Between Unemployment and Insecurity in Mexico: NAFTA Enters Its Second Decade," Washington, D.C., Economic Policy Institute, 2006.
(7) Audley, John, et al., "NAFTA's Promise and Reality: Lessons From Mexico for the Hemisphere," Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Report, Americas Program. May 7, 2007.
(8) Jordan, Mary and Sullivan, Keith, "Trade Brings Riches, but not to Mexico's Poor," Washington Post, March 22, 2003.

Thanks for the clarification, nomore.  Some great facts you've pulled together!