John Negroponte, who helped craft NAFTA, to discuss free trade’s impact during visit to Texas A&M

The man who perhaps pushed hardest for the North American Free Trade Agreement is coming to Aggieland to discuss the history and influence of NAFTA, which was among the most consequential trade agreements in world history.

The pact intertwined the economies of the United States, Mexico and Canada. John Negroponte, President George H.W. Bush’s ambassador to Mexico, helped negotiate the terms. He will talk about the agreement in a free, open-to-the-public speech on Oct. 15 — a history of particular significance today, when even basic assumptions about free trade are being interrogated at the highest levels of government.

Negroponte will speak at 5:30 p.m. at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center. Those interested in attending can register until Oct. 14. The event, part of the ConocoPhillips White House Lecture Series, is sponsored by the Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics, and Public Policy, which is part of The Bush School of Government and Public Service. His talk is titled “George H.W. Bush’s Vision for Trade Across the Americas.”

“Even just saying NAFTA brings up a whole host of ideas and opinions and memories for a lot of people,” said Raymond Robertson, director of the Mosbacher Institute and an international expert on international and labor economics. “It changed trade across an entire continent. It fundamentally altered the relationship between the United States, Mexico and Canada. And we can hear about it from one of the people who made it happen.”

“Ambassador Negroponte played a major role in shaping our economy,” added John B. Sherman, dean of the Bush School. “If you have any interest in free trade and its role in our society, you should come hear what he has to say.”

How much to engage with other countries, socially and economically, is one of the questions fueling modern politics. It underpins President Donald Trump’s tariffs, the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union and political realignments around the world.

Negroponte is among the most consequential advocates of free trade and worldwide engagement in United States history. His career in Washington, D.C. and abroad spans six decades, during which he served in positions such as deputy national security adviser (in the Ronald Reagan administration) and U.S. ambassador to Iraq in the early days of the Iraq War. He was George H.W. Bush’s ambassador to Mexico from 1989 to 1993.

The idea for what became NAFTA was first publicly proposed by Reagan during his 1979 campaign for president. He pioneered a flavor of conservatism that called for deep, muscular engagement with the rest of the world, including trade with as few barriers as possible. In 1988, Reagan and the leaders of Canada reached a smaller-scale trade agreement. Mexico then pushed for a similar but more comprehensive pact with the United States following the Latin debt crisis. The issues fell to Bush shortly after he was elected president. Negroponte, as ambassador to Mexico, successfully pushed the administration to begin negotiating the pact that became NAFTA despite objections from the Office of the United States Trade Representative. Canada soon joined the negotiations, which largely took place during Bush’s term. The agreement established a free-trade zone that removed what proponents considered unnecessary obstacles to trade and investment between the United States, Mexico and Canada. The countries eliminated most tariffs on each other’s goods. (A recent edition of The Takeaway, the Mosbacher Institute’s series of policy briefs, broadly supports that course, concluding that tariffs cause widespread economic harm by raising prices without creating commensurate benefits.)

NAFTA was ultimately ratified in 1993 under President Bill Clinton. Disagreements over it continued for decades. Many economists say the agreement worked to the benefit of people in all three member countries. Many labor advocates argue that the agreement led to U.S. jobs migrating to Mexico. Even the acronym for a trade agreement — the sort of thing that tends to fade from public sight, lingering mainly in the memories of policy wonks — became embedded in American popular culture. NAFTA remains a part of the national lexicon. Mere mention of it can spark debate to this day, despite it no longer being the law of the land.

President Trump, whose administrations have adopted a more skeptical stance toward international trade and worldwide engagement, sought to replace NAFTA shortly after taking office in January 2017. In 2020, the United States, Mexico and Canada agreed to a new agreement, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Since taking office for his second term earlier this year, Trump has implemented numerous tariffs — the antithesis of NAFTA — including on many Canadian and Mexican goods. His supporters contend that the effort will rebalance trade in the United States’s favor, while critics argue that the tariffs will hurt U.S. consumers by reducing trade and raising prices.