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North American Free Trade

Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Jeffrey J. Schott
Reviewed by By William Diebold, Jr.
Summer 1992
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Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Jeffrey J. Schott
Institute for International Economics
1992
369 pp.

This very comprehensive study serves as an excellent handbook for the Mexican-Canadian-U.S. negotiations looking toward some kind of free trade area. It provides fairly detailed estimates of possible effects on jobs, trade and other matters. More important it describes all the major issues (with special attention to the Mexican aspects) and makes quite concrete recommendations for dealing with the difficulties they present. There is some discussion of the relations of the negotiations to the interests of other countries and world trading arrangements. The authors, who have done much work in related fields, conclude that a North American Free Trade Agreement "should produce an improved, trilateral version of the Canadian-U.S. agreement" and serve "as a model of future trade pacts both regionally and multilaterally."

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