Congress approved the negotiations in 1984 and the United States Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement was concluded in 1988. When Mexico, to everyone`s surprise, sought a similar agreement, the result was the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with three nations. This turned out to be the most controversial of all U.S. trade deals, in part because average wages in Mexico were only a fraction of U.S. wages, giving Mexican products an advantage over labor-intensive goods and thus threatening U.S. employment. After a Herculean fight, the Clinton administration won congressional approval in 1993. Many interest groups in the U.S. agricultural sector have opposed the Trump administration`s decision to withdraw from the TPP and threats to withdraw from NAFTA, citing the benefits of trade for the agri-food industry and the potential for disruption to U.S. export markets in the face of growing uncertainty in U.S.
trade policy. Some in Congress and the U.S. Agriculture cautiously supports efforts to renegotiate or “modernize” certain NAFTA provisions regarding agriculture. Some recommend that many of the agricultural provisions agreed in the TPP agreement provide a possible model framework for a NAFTA renegotiation. For the first phase (years 1 to 6 or 1994-99), Mexico would have duty-free access for sugar exports to the United States for the level of its net surplus production, up to a maximum of 25,000 tonnes, gross value. d by a Study by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) of July 1993 (“A Budgetary and Economic Analysis of NAFTA”). According to the CBO study, the promise of access to the U.S. market could encourage investment and expansion in Mexico and change Mexican demand for imports.
For example, Mexico could switch to HFCs in its soft drink industry. Based on data from the 1990 season, the switch to hfcs sweeteners in Mexico could release up to 1.3 million tonnes of sugar for other purposes and indicate almost all Mexican imports. This likely scenario has been a key factor in the development of the sugar annex agreement. . . .