Your party invented it. Everyone in your party signed yes to it. If you never invented it, it would never exist. Reagan came up with it. He was a globalist. You guys had to convince us to go along. So who should be blamed for NAFTA? For years you tried to blame Clinton. When the reality is, it was all Republicans doing. You know, the "globalists"
The impetus for a North American free trade zone began with U.S. president
Ronald Reagan, who made the idea part of his
1980 presidential campaign. After the signing of the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement in 1988, the administrations of U.S. president
George H. W. Bush, Mexican president
Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and Canadian prime minister
Brian Mulroney agreed to negotiate what became NAFTA. Each submitted the agreement for ratification in their respective capitals in December 1992, but NAFTA faced significant opposition in both the United States and Canada.
What were liberals worried about?
The effects of the agreement regarding issues such as employment, the environment, and economic growth have been the subject of political disputes. Most economic analyses indicated that NAFTA was beneficial to the North American economies and the average citizen, but harmed a small minority of workers in industries exposed to trade competition. Economists held that withdrawing from NAFTA or renegotiating NAFTA in a way that reestablished trade barriers would have adversely affected the U.S. economy and cost jobs.
Before sending it to the
United States Senate, Clinton added two side agreements, the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) and the
North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), to protect workers and the environment, and to also allay the concerns of many Democratic House members. After much consideration and emotional discussion, the
U.S. House of Representatives passed the North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act on November 17, 1993, 234–200. The agreement's supporters included 132
Republicans and 102
Democrats. The bill passed the Senate on November 20, 1993, 61–38.<a Senate supporters were 34 Republicans and 27 Democrats. Republican Representative
David Dreier of California, a strong proponent of NAFTA since the Reagan administration, played a leading role in mobilizing support for the agreement among Republicans in Congress and across the country