AGRICULTURAL TRADE LIBERALIZATION UNDER NAFTA: REPORTING ON THE REPORT CARD

Fairchild and Aubin

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Source: Compiled from response data.

distorting subsidies in their country, while about one-fifth were neutral on the
subject and 5 percent slightly disagreed. For the all-country average, about 85
percent of workshop participants believed that NAFTA had helped reduce trade-
distorting subsidies in their own country, with most of the rest remaining neu-
tral on the question.

Both report cards indicate that the majority of workshop participants
slightly agree that NAFTA helped reduce trade-distorting subsidies in other
NAFTA countries (Table 13). For the all-country average, 63 percent of the
respondents in the first report card indicated slight agreement, increasing to 79
percent in the second report card. Those strongly agreeing increased modestly
from 15 to 18 percent. Many of those holding a neutral position at the begin-
ning of the workshop (20 percent) apparently moved to the slightly agree or
the strongly agree categories, thus reducing the neutral category to a mere 3
percent.

Individual country responses showed some variation across countries
and participants from both Canada and the United States increased their pres-
ence in the slightly agree category, from 65 to 87 percent and from 55 to 69
percent, respectively (Table 13). By the end of the workshop, 13 percent of
Canadians and 25 percent OfAmericans strongly agreed that NAFTA had helped
reduce trade-distorting subsidies in other countries. One-quarter of Americans
also held this opinion at the beginning of the workshop. Mexican opinion did

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