NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE: OPPORTUNITIES AND PITFALLS

Most studies of the impacts of the North American Free Trade Agreement assume that once the agreement is in place, it will remain in place. Some common theories of trade and of special interest groups' influences upon government policy call these assumptions into question. If ratification of the agreement represents a loss for some import-competing special interest groups, the loss likely will be only of a battle in a war that continues. Attempts to abridge the effects of the agreement may succeed even if the agreement itself is not abridged. U.S. special interest groups rather than their Mexican counterparts will make the majority of these attempts.