2016 Postmortem

Long-Standing Support for Free Trade with Mexico. Ronald Reagan first proposed a free trade agreement between the U.S. and Mexico in his 1980 presidential campaign. Since that time, The Heritage Foundation is proud of the role it has played in articulating President Reagan's vision of free trade in Latin America and around the world. Since the mid-1980s, Heritage analysts have been stressing that a free trade agreement with Mexico not only will stimulate economic growth in the U.S., but will make Mexico a more stable and prosperous country. Heritage has published over three dozen studies stressing the benefits of free trade in North America.

The Politics of Fear vs. the Politics of Hope. The approval of the NAFTA not only represents a victory for the U.S. economy and the American people, it also deals a blow to organized labor and other protectionist forces. The agreement reaffirms the American commitment to competition and free enterprise that other nations emulate.

By supporting the NAFTA, the Clinton Administration and a majority of Congress wisely rejected calls for a return to the same protectionist policies, demonstrated by the Smoot-Hawley tariff laws, which helped create the Great Depression. Many of these protectionist calls were from labor unions concerned that the NAFTA would cost U.S. jobs in older industries. Despite such concerns, though, labor will see that, as consumers in a growing economy, they too are better off when nations are free to trade with one another and workers are exposed to the rigors of international competition.