Quote:
Originally Posted by Ford Prefect
NAFTA has already shown us that the US will do what it pleases regardless of petty considerations like international agreements, so it may all be a moot point anyway.
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Actually, Mexicans, Canadians AND Americans ALL think the OTHER signatories to NAFTA have fared better than their own countries . . . . . which likely means, following the observation that most people are chronic know-nothings, that it's been fair.
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pi...nt=161&lb=brla
So . . . . . you're in the majority of all three countries if you think NAFTA has been bad for your own country.
There is actually a growing opinion in the USA that America is being screwed by NAFTA. You should have seen Lou Dobbs face the other day when Canada announced it had entered into free trade deals with some East European countries, effectively creating a rail line right into the USA. Priceless. And his opinion is supported to some degree in polls.
I think it would be pretty humourous, in an apocolyptic kind of way, to see the look on Canadian's faces if they were suddenly denied fairly unlimited access to the number one consumer market in the world and the number one consumer of their material products like oil and metals. Ask the softwood lumber industry if they like competing in a nasty, no-rules, world, even if that was under NAFTA as well . . . . just apply that single situation to everything.
The average Canadian should be down on his or her knees thanking the Lords of Kobol for NAFTA.
And it still seems its easier to trade with America than it is between provinces, something Bank of Canada's David Dodge was alluding to the other day. We should be looking to fix our own internal trade issues rather than going all squeamish on NAFTA.
The problem is wether or not we want to be dominated by a country whos worldview is fundamentally different from our own.
There's currently something of a divergence, but that isn't necessarily so through the long-term as administrations come and go.
Cowperson