Speaker: Earl Anthony Wayne, former Career Ambassador to Afghanistan, Argentina, and Mexico https://www.wilsoncenter.org/person/earl-anthony-wayne

The United States, Mexico, and Canada have forged a massive trading and production network over the past three decades. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) opened the doors for a significant reorientation of all three economies. Combined, Canada and Mexico are the US’ largest economic partners and the US is by far the largest economic partner for Mexico and Canada. Up to 14 million US jobs depend on NAFTA trade; likewise, US trade and investment supports millions of jobs in Mexico and Canada. Trade between the three countries now amounts to 1.3 trillion USD a year: over 80 percent more than China-US trade.

The Mexico-US relationship has undergone a major transformation during these years. Bilateral trade is six times its size before NAFTA existed, reaching 616 billion USD in 2017, and the nature of trade changed from traditional commerce to intra-industry and intra-firm trade. The two countries became joint producers instead of merely traders and greatly expanded cooperation across a wide range of issues.

Debate about whether to ratify the new agreement, called the USMCA (the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement) will be lively in the US Congress. The prospects for rapid ratification are low. This talk explores the background, substance, and outstanding issues regarding the new North American trade agreement from the US-Mexico perspective.