Economic Theory Commons^™

Nafta Integration: Unproductive Finance And Real Unemployment, Melvin Burke

School of Economics Faculty Scholarship

NAFTA did not begin on January 1, 1994, but rather, many years earlier in 1988 with the Canadian/USA Free Trade Agreement and with President Carlos Salinas de Gortari's economic reforms. The latest Mexican crisis is but the historic continuation of its 1982 debt crisis. Both are part of the larger global stagnation crisis which began in the 1970s and continues today. NAFTA is not a free trade agreement, but rather the creation of a North American trade block, designed and implemented by American multinational corporations to obtain a greater share of a stagnant global output. It is not a "win, …