The North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA) was founded in 1994, in order to enlarge the market for US companies. The Association pulls down every protection or trade barrier between US-states, but also with Canada and Mexico. Since 1993, big companies like Eastman Kodak and General Electric started lobbying in the American Government. NAFTA would enable them to start production in Mexico, where wages are lower and thus profits are higher. On the 1st of January 1994, NAFTA was operational.

The most important AGM-critique is that NAFTA only served the interests of the big US companies. New jobs, promised by the companies, are nowhere to be found, pollution has increased in Mexico, and the Americanization of Canadian culture has reached a new level. Factories in the US have been closed down and were moved to Mexico. Unemployment rates in the US have increased, and the wages in Mexico have decreased. Only the profits of the big companies have improved. (Snow:1998)

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Snow, N. (1998) Propaganda Inc.: Selling America's culture to the world. New York:Seven Stories Press