NAFTA: What Kind of Future?

Abstract

Within a period of less than a month, the United States twice took decisive steps in the fall of 1993 to bolster the advocates of trade liberalization. The Congressional approval of NAFTA in November was followed by agreement on completion of the Uruguay Round, more than seven years after its inauguration and three after its scheduled termination. This combination of new, but long-awaited, initiatives provides considerable reassurance to those afraid that the new Clinton Administration would deviate from long-standing United States commitment to expanded world trade as an essential element of global economic growth. And failure would have been ironic indeed, since even the countries of Africa and Latin America have finally, after decades, become adherents of a strategy of trade expansion as essential to their continuous economic development.