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Although the concept of free trade areas can be traced back to the 1800s, the actual creation of free trade zones is a recent development. The European Economic Community was created in 1957 and has evolved from an initial group of 6 countries to the 25 members of what is now called the European Union. In 1986 the United States and Canada signed a free trade agreement, and they included Mexico in the 1993 NAFTA agreement. In 2004 at the Summit of the Americas, leaders of 34 countries endorsed a framework for a regional free trade pact across the Western Hemisphere by 2005. Membership would be limited to democratic states, which currently excludes only communist-ruled Cuba among the hemisphere's nations. If signed, the treaty, known as the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), would strike down trade barriers across the Americas from the Arctic Circle to Cape Horn—a region that is home to 800 million people.
Free trade areas are based on the notion that they provide economic advancement for all participatory states. Many scholars believe that a free trade zone reduces states' international debt, increases trade and investment, and implicitly promotes further democratization and cooperation regionally and globally. Proponents of this perspective maintain that everyone benefits from free trade. As discussed in the text, however, many others argue that expanding free trade areas causes many problems, including job flight from developed countries to less developed countries, issues of unfair and unsafe working conditions, and environmental problems as industries move to countries with weaker environmental laws.
In the questions below, you are asked to evaluate the logic of free trade and to decide just how far you think the expansion of free trade should go in the Western Hemisphere.
