Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Am thinking i've seen that before,

Back row, left to right: Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, U.S. President George H. W. Bush, and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, at the initialing of the draft North American Free Trade Agreement in October 1992.

just am reading Clinton signed NAFTA yet there is that photo.

It must a photo at the initializing of the draft NAFTA.

Hope you get photo caption at the top of that search link like i did.

So though it was a draft, in assigning responsibility for free trade efforts (or responsibility as B402 is negatively into), for NAFTA purposes, i think it is fair to say that that was it. The first NAFTA deal. And Clinton didn't sign it. HW Bush was there. B402 should get his story straight.

Before NAFTA came

The Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA), official name as the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States of America (French: Accord de libre-échange entre le Canada et les États-Unis d'Amérique), was a bilateral trade agreement reached by negotiators for Canada and the United States on October 4, 1987, and signed by the leaders of both countries on January 2, 1988.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_Free_Trade_Agreement
[...]
The Free Trade Agreement faced much less opposition in the US. Polls showed that up to 40% of Americans were unaware that the agreement had been signed. The Agreement implementation act was given to the Congress for "fast-track" approve by President Reagan on July 26, 1988,[19] meaning that it could be accepted or rejected but could not be amended. The United States-Canada Free-Trade Agreement Implementation Act of 1988 was passed by the House of Representatives by a vote of 366 - 40 on August 9, 1988 and by the Senate by a vote of 83–9 on September 19, 1988.[19] President Reagan signed the Act on September 28, 1988. It became Public Law No: 100–449.[19]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada%E2%80%93United_States_Free_Trade_Agreement#Debate_and_implementation

So Reagan signed the USA-Canada trade agreement which NAFTA later replaced. Think i'm finally starting to get it straight. Trade liberalization between the USA and Canada was initiated and pushed by Republican presidents even if most (or many} of both parties were on board. Clinton signed the final NAFTA draft but only because he had just become president.

A wander aside: Just like the corporate deregulation that Republicans blame on Clinton because he signed the final bill. I forget the name of it, but Republicans and corporations had been pushing deregulation for years and the bill ??????? was pretty well decimated before Clinton was involved. You would know what i can't reca just this minute.

Considering the free trade history I don't think it's either fair or accurate for B402, in his personal pocket history, to put Dems via Clinton driving that bus

To that point i was reading different things in different places.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA /'næft?/; Spanish: Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte, TLCAN; French: Accord de libre-échange nord-américain, ALÉNA) was an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the United States that created a trilateral trade bloc in North America. The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994,

[only one year into Clinton's first term]

and superseded the 1988 Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Canada.[2] The NAFTA trade bloc formed one of the largest trade blocs in the world by gross domestic product.

The impetus for a North American free trade zone began with U.S. president Ronald Reagan,

[B402 did concede that]

who made the idea part of his 1980 presidential campaign. After the signing of the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement in 1988

[ a year before the end of Reagan's term]

, the administrations of U.S. president George H. W. Bush, Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, and Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney agreed to negotiate what became NAFTA.

Right that's where your photo of the draft signing comes in.

Whew. That's do me for now. Hope to in five years remember it better than it did one first seeing your photo this time. LOL