AGRICULTURAL TRADE LIBERALIZATION UNDER NAFTA: REPORTING ON THE REPORT CARD

NAFTA - Report Card on Agriculture

Table 13: Agreement as to Whether NAFTA Helped Reduce Trade-

Distorting Subsidies in Other NAFTA Countries--Percent
Response for Each Report Card by Country and Total.

Source: Compiled from response data.

not vary during the workshop as all of the participants from Mexico slightly
agreed with the proposition.

Comparing the information in Table 12 and Table 13 indicates that
workshop participants tended to believe more strongly that NAFTA has re-
sulted in the reduction of trade-distorting subsidies in their own country than in
other NAFTA countries. This result is not entirely unexpected, as reductions in
subsidies in one’s own industry and country may be more visible than are such
reductions in other countries.

When workshop participants initially were asked the extent to which
they agreed that NAFTA had improved market access opportunities, there was
a locus of points formed by the responses across all respondents (Table 14).
About 60 percent of respondents strongly agreed and 40 percent slightly agreed
that NAFTA had improved market access opportunities. These responses were
not unexpected as a central objective of NAFTA was to increase market access
among member countries.

While the all-country average remained basically unchanged between
report cards, there were some interesting shifts within countries (Table 14).
Following the workshop, the proportion of participants from Canada and Mexico
registering strong agreement increased from 59 to 67 percent for Canada and
from 50 to 67 percent for Mexico. At the same time, the proportion of partici-
pants from the United States agreeing strongly declined from 60 percent to 44

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