Question

13.) Discuss opportunities available to member countries of NAFTA as well difficulties or problems – economic, political, social, Give your analysis of the problem.

Answer 1

First of all,we should know about "NAFTA" a little bit. North American Free Trade Agreement is an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America.it was created to expand trade between these member countries and also to make these countries more competitive in the global marketplace. By reducing tariffs and trade barriers, the countries hope to create a free-trade zone where companies can benefit from the transfer of goods and it is the largest free trade agreement in the world.  

now coming to that which opportunities available to member countries of NAFTA?

There are a lot of opportunities,among them these following are important ones:-

1.first of all it increased trade between these countries exponentially and its reason is quite simple because this agreement eliminated tariffs.

2.Beacause of increment in trade,GDP was also increased.that led to better growth rate which increased foreign direct investment as well as created jobs.

3.the agreement helped with government spending. That's because each nation's government contracts became available to suppliers in all three member countries. That increased competition and lowered costs.

4.it also lowered prices beacause of eliminated tarrifs.

then why is NAFTA severally criticized?

Answer is very simple that we all know that growth always comes with costs and same happens in this agreement too.it's disadvantages or negative impacts are following:-

1.Since labour is cheaper in other countries many manufacturing industries withdrew part of their production from the high-cost United States.this led to lost of of many u.s. jobs.The hardest-hit states were California, New York, Michigan, and Texas. They had high concentrations of the industries that moved plants to Mexico.

2.it lowered the u.s. wages beacause of lower wages of mexico.

3.mexico's farmers were put out of buisness because of eliminated tariffs u.s. exported its corn and other crops at very low rates and with that mexico's farmers were not able to compete and the Mexican farmers who managed to stay in business were forced to use more fertilizers and farm marginal land to survive. That created more pollution and deforestation.

4.Maquiladora workers were exploited because the workers had "no labor rights or health protections,"

so from above points or comparison of pros and cons we can analyse that like every other free trade agreement "NAFTA" also gives the opportunity for better growth and development and it increased econimic output of these member countries rapidly but like i said above that if a thing or agreement is benefitting some people or a country then it will also inversely affect some areas of that country.NAFTA is also doing the same ,it increased GDP and gives higher growth rate and better development but also resulted in increase in unemployment and bad impacts on enviroment and exploitation of labours etc.

We can conclude that nothing can justify the cons of NAFTA but from economic prospective NAFTA is a success. Without it, the United States would not be as strong a competitor with the European Union or China and from social perspective it comprises of various bad effects.so it should also look in betterment of society instead of just focusing on economic output.