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The North American Free Trade Agreement.  A trilateral agreement lowering barriers to trade between the United States, Canada, and Mexico signed in 1993.  NAFTA has become the scapegoat for the decline of industrial and manufacturing production in the U.S., eroding labor and environmental standards in all three countries, assaults on political and cultural sovereignty in each country, the urbanization and desolation of the rural economy in Mexico, and a whole host of other social and economic ills.  Apparently many of the previous definitions of this word include some type of observation that NAFTA has induced greater immigration into the U.S. from Mexico, to the detriment of the American "nation" or "way of life".  Perhaps these xenophobic and nationalistic views are correct if they assume that the U.S. is a cultural nation that is not able to adapt to changes in its demographic composition.  Seen from another perspective, NAFTA could be interpreted as the beginning of the political and economic consolidation  of North America, increasing the freedom for all people who inhabit this hemisphere and not merely those who benefit from imposition of a strong foreign policy abroad, with a culture of sloth, consumerism, and self-entitlement at home.  True conservatives would hail NAFTA as a wonderful achievement - a removal of state imposed artificial barriers to competition, that sought increases in productivity and efficiency.  Unfortunately most conservatives today are afraid of the "evil horde" of "foreign invaders" to the point that they rationalise any further attempts to even the playing field between the U.S. and its neighbors.  2.  An imperfect beginning to hemispheric integration, (the American version of the European Union).

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