Taskforce on NAFTA Renegotiation: Letter to Harper,Obama, Calderon
June 18, 2009
Dear Prime Minister Harper and Presidents Obama and Caldéron:
Fifteen years since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) entered into effect, it has become obvious that many of the promised benefits of the agreement have not come to be. As Members of our Parliaments and Congress in Canada, Mexico and the U.S., we ask you, on behalf of our constituents as well as civil society organizations, to consider a new, people-centered fair trade model; we wish to ensure fair trade with quality-of-life for our peoples and environmental protection as first principles of the Americas. We must reshape trade agreements in North America to ensure rising standards of living for our peoples. Unfortunately, NAFTA has aggravated poverty across the continent. It is clear that NAFTA is not working for the vast majority of inhabitants of North America. It has failed on the bottom line. As lawmakers in our respective chambers, we have voiced concerns about NAFTA promoting a “race to the bottom” rather than equitable development in all three countries.
