A study tracks how the North American Free Trade Agreement and trade competition with Mexico led to earlier deaths for American factory workers.
The North American Free Trade Agreement, the deal that began integrating the Mexican economy with the United States and Canada in the 1990s, has been a politically charged topic for decades.
Centrist Democrats and Republicans supported the agreement as a way to strengthen the North American economy. But its legacy has been mixed. In some parts of the United States, the agreement shuttered factories and put people out of work as companies moved production to Mexico, where labor was cheaper. President Trump won over unions and other workers as a candidate by labeling NAFTA the “worst agreement ever” and promising to improve or scrap it.
A new paper adds to the understanding of NAFTA’s costs. In it, economists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Chicago found that American workers in communities that were more exposed to competition from Mexican imports saw a significant shortening of their life spans after the trade deal went into effect in 1994.
