Fact Sheet: NAFTA’s Legacy: Empty Promises for U.S. Farmers
U.S. farmers and ranchers were promised that they would benefit substantially from the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA supporters sold the deal as the path to economic success for rural communities – hyping the agreement’s prospects for increasing U.S. agricultural exports. But the most recent data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reveal that U.S. agricultural exports to the NAFTA countries have lagged, agricultural imports from those countries have surged and family farms have disappeared under NAFTA.