Talk:Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement/Archives/2012

nafta

the article mentioned nafta include mexico. at present, does nafta include chile as well? Jackzhp 17:54, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

No, NAFTA is still only the original three. Both Canada and the United States have free trade agreements with Chile somewhat modeled after NAFTA, but these are separate bilateral treaties between the countries. - SimonP 18:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Canadian election

I was expecting to see some mention of the election campaign and results that were fought in Canada over this; perhaps there's a Free Trade Election (Canada) article, as that's what that election is sometimes referred to as; stats including interesting facts that only Alberta and Quebec voted convincingly for the deal, or rather voted in enough Tories to validate the Mulroney government and its passage of the ratification. The population of Canada, en masse opposed the FTA but, because of our system of plurality, first-past-the-post, the Tories won enough to get away with it. I'd obviously write in something POV if I added something about this, so I'll leave it to a more neutral account. Maybe. But it definitely needs to be in here.Skookum1 (talk) 15:47, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

The FTA was not fundamentally about tariffs, however. Average tariffs on goods crossing the border were well below 1% by the 1980s. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.1.146.28 (talk) 17:38, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Purpose of NAFTA

The FTA was not fundamentally about tariffs, however. Average tariffs on goods crossing the border were well below 1% by the 1980s.

Is this true? Is there any evidence to back up both the political (not fundamentally about tariffs) as well as the tariff number (1%)?

Several academic articles report quite high tariffs between Can and the US (e.g. Trefler, Daniel (2004): "The Long and Short of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement", American Economic Review). The fact that the tariffs measured at the border were small doesn't mean anything: If there are 2 goods, one with a 100% tariff and another one with 1% tariff and only the one with that 1% gets traded, the average measured tariff at the border is 1%! If tariffs do there job, they reduce trade flow (protecting the domestic industries) so this currently cited measure seems very wrong. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.1.146.28 (talk) 17:47, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Basic dates wrong?

This website says that the agreement was signed in January 1988, not in October. What is right?

http://www.international.gc.ca/trade-agreements-accords-commerciaux/agr-acc/fast-facts-US.aspx?lang=en —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.128.160.180 (talk) 10:51, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Effects

"The fears that the agreement would undermine Canada's sovereignty have still not come to pass, and Canada's cultural industries are still healthy."

This needs a reference. I can only think of examples that disprove this statement, such as Ethyl Corporation successful law suit against Canada, FedEx vs. Canada Post, and a few others. Though it could be argued that the statement is technically correct, but misleading - perhaps fears have not come to pass, but some sovereignty has definitely been lost. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.6.20.26 (talk) 04:03, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

"In 1990-1991, the Canadian dollar rose sharply in value against the US currency, making Canadian manufactured goods much more expensive for Americans to buy, and making American manufactured goods much cheaper for Canadians, who no longer had to pay high duties on them. The phenomenon of "cross-border shopping", where Canadians would make shopping daytrips to U.S. border towns to take advantage of tariff-free goods and a high Canadian dollar, provided a mini-boom for these towns. Many Canadian jobs lost, particularly in the Ontario manufacturing sector during the recession of the early 1990s, was attributed (fairly or not) to the Free Trade Agreement. In the mid-to-late 1990s, however, the Canadian dollar fell to record lows in value to against the U.S. dollar. Cheaper Canadian primary products such as lumber and oil could be bought tariff-free by Americans, while Hollywood studios sent their crews to film many movies in Canada due to the cheap Canadian dollar. The removal of protective tariffs meant that market forces, such as currency values, have a bigger effect on the economies of both countries that they otherwise would have been." NOT TRUE -- per x-rates.com, the 1990 monthly USD-CAD rate ranged between 1.114481 and 1.19648, while 1991's ranged from 1.12794 to 1.15716 -- NOT a big difference, much less "rose sharply." Possibly another year is meant? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.184.103.35 (talk) 21:38, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

"The agreement has failed to liberalize trade in some areas, most notably softwood lumber, in which Canadians expressed frustration and believed that Americans repeatedly violated the agreement to impose protectionist policies." Was it not ruled by multiple courts that the tariffs on softwood lumber were unfair? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.6.230.175 (talk) 13:18, 23 July 2012 (UTC)