Even though NAFTA affects every American, fewer than 10 people joined Brigham Young University Professor Earl Fry for his talk on United States-Canadian trade after the implementation of NAFTA.
Perhaps the low attendance was indicative of one of Fry's observations about Americans concerning the North American Free Trade Agreement: Many Americans hold negative views toward NAFTA, not because the treaty has caused them great economic harm, but primarily because of their ignorance of it.
Fry, the director of BYU's Washington Seminar Program, believes most Americans would be more supportive of NAFTA if they understood its benefits.
"Americans think globalization goes along with financial instability," he said. "They are fearful for their own jobs and the jobs of their children."
Fry sees this attitude especially among the "digital-have-nots." Although the United States will inevitably lose low-skill jobs as a result of globalization, he explained, Americans are making up for this loss in jobs requiring highly trained, better-paid workers.
Interestingly enough, Ben Fullalove, an art history graduate student from Canada, said Canadians' greatest fear about NAFTA is losing their cultural and economic control without maintaining their political sovereignty. Canadians are worried about preserving their cultural heritage, he said, even if it means limited access to certain Internet sites or television programs from other countries.
Fry, on the other hand, does not foresee such an outcome. "I think consumer sovereignty will prevail in that area," he said.
Fry's talk focused mostly on the tightly knit relationship between the United States and Canada. The professor explained that despite the fact that economic interaction with Mexico is more publicized than its trade with Canada, the neighbor to the north is actually a more valuable trading partner. Three million U.S. jobs are linked to Canada. More significantly, he said, the United States and Canada are the leading suppliers of imports for each other.
In fact, Fry explained that Canadian manufacturers produce more goods for the United States than for their own country. He added that Canadians are the United States' primary source of foreign tourists and that the United States exports more to the province of Ontario than to Japan.
Fry believes the future of NAFTA holds possibilities like "pre-processing," where officials could check immigrants and commercial vehicles by computer before they cross borders.
Overall, Fry stressed that Americans must be willing to accept certain sacrifices to be successful. "We need to be prepared to give up some of our national sovereignty for the good of our people," he said.
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