AGRICULTURAL TRADE LIBERALIZATION UNDER NAFTA: REPORTING ON THE REPORT CARD

NAFTA - Report Card on Agriculture

Table 11: Agreement as to Whether NAFTA Promoted Conditions of
Fair Competition in Agriculture--Percent Response for Each
__________Report Card by Country and Total.________________________

Source: Compiled from response data.

cent of respondents either strongly or slightly agreed that NAFTA had pro-
moted fair competition, with some variation both among countries and between
report cards as can be seen in Table 11. Thus, the workshop report cards give
NAFTA strong marks for promoting conditions of fair competition in agricul-
ture.

Reduction of Trade-distorting Subsidies

The report cards asked two questions concerning whether NAFTA had
helped reduce trade-distorting subsidies, the first question focusing on the
participant’s home country and the second on other NAFTA countries. When
asked to what extent they agreed that NAFTA had helped reduce trade-distort-
ing subsidies in their own country, three-fourths of workshop participants from
Mexico strongly agreed and one-fourth slightly agreed in the first report card,
changing to two-thirds strongly agreeing and one-third slightly agreeing in the
second report card (Table 12).

In response to the same question, Canadian workshop participants also
tended to strongly (35 percent) or slightly (53 percent) agree, with 12 percent
expressing neutrality on the subject (Table 13). Following the workshop, the
majority (67 percent) of Canadian workshop participants strongly agreed that
NAFTA had helped reduce trade-distorting subsidies in their country, com-
pared to one-third who slightly agreed. In both report cards, a smaller propor-
tion of participants from the United States strongly agreed (20 to 25 percent)
and slightly agreed (50 to 55 percent) that NAFTA had helped reduce trade-

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