NAFTA

NAFTA The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect on January 1, forming the largest free trade zone in the world. Signed by the United States, Canada, and Mexico, the goal of NAFTA is to create better trading conditions through tariff reduction, removal of investment barriers, and improvement of intellectual property protection. NAFTA continues to gradually reduce tariffs on set dates and aims to eliminate all tariffs by the year 2004. Before NAFTA was established, investing in Mexico was a difficult process. Investors needed the Mexican Government's approval and were also required to meet specific investment guidelines. These requirements necessitated investors to export a set level of goods and services, utilize domestic goods and services, and transfer technology to competitors. Under NAFTA, investors no longer need government approval to invest and are treated as domestic investors. NAFTA has also increased intellectual property rights and allowed companies to obtain patents in Mexico and Canada. In the past, companies were hesitant to export research and development intensive goods; with increased intellectual property protection, however, exports of these goods have shown a definite increase. The free trade that NAFTA has established has greatly benefited the U.S. economy. During the years from 1994 to nafta, mexico, jobs, wages, united, trade, states, job, goods, increased, increase, free, canada, years, tariffs, lower, loss, level, investors, investment, export, due, companies, been, because, agricultural, workers, work, set, same, property, products, one, now, new