Free Trade Term Paper

Global outcome of free trade really depends on which side of the fence one is on. The mention of free trade usually brings to mind topics such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, the Central American Free Trade Agreement, CAFTA, the Free Trade Area of the Americas, FTAA, the World Trade Organization, and the Fast Track Trade authority for the president of the Untied States (Eddlem pp). However, critics claim that free trade simply means an absence of any government intervention in business (Eddlem pp). Government intervention includes tariffs, taxes, trade sanctions, import quotas, regulations, or subsides, and each of these, including government subsidies, is equally anathema to a free trader because it detracts from the natural efficiency of the free market that produces wealth (Eddlem pp). Thus, all the international trade agreements, from the World Trade Organization to the FTAA, embrace some form of sanction mechanism to enforce the will of the deciding body, all endorse heavy government regulations on labor and the environment, and all protect forms of corporate welfare for favored domestic industries (Eddlem pp).

Critics of free trade policies claim that to corporate tycoons like Philip Condit, the former Boeing CEO who pushed Congress for the necessary trade agreements to sell taxpayer-subsidized goods abroad, "free trade ideology is not a set of principles ... But a tactical maneuver to be deployed, or withdrawn, as the circumstances require for the particular ends sought" (Eddlem pp). These agreements make American manufacturers dependent on foreign manufacturers through production sharing, and attempt to divest Congress of its constitutional responsibility to regulate trade, unconstitutionally surrendering that responsibility to an international body (Eddlem pp).

In the December 22, 2004 issue of American Review of Canadian Studies, Michael Hart states that "The successful conclusion of a trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement created expectations about the evolution of a North American community," however this has not happened, nor is it imminent (Hart pp). According to Hart, NAFTA is little more than a joint agreement to manage two distinct bilateral trade and economic relationships (Hart pp). The issues that Mexico has with the U.S. are not the same issues that Canada has, and trying to address either Canada-U.S. Or Mexico-U.S. issues on a trilateral basis is unnecessarily complicated and likely to prove counter productive (Hart pp).

In the March 22, 1998 issue of the Houston Journal of International Law, Lisa Anderson points out that the concept of free trade has taken on global proportions, and that the original bilateral trade agreements between neighboring countries have ballooned to encompass whole regions and countries are implementing new…