Abstract
While both the EC and NAFTA are designed to provide trade preferences to the member countries, the two groupings differ markedly in other respects. The Treaty of Rome, establishing what is now the EC, consciously used economic means to foster political cohesion in Western Europe; whereas, the NAFTA negotiations seek free trade rather than more comprehensive economic integration precisely to minimize political content. The EC contains many social provisions absent from the NAFTA discussions, the most important of which is the right of migration from one EC country to another. However, migration between Mexico and the United States, both legal and undocumented, is more extensive than between any of the EC countries. This migration is unlikely to diminish in the near to medium term because of the great disparity that exists in the levels of income of the two countries. However, a reduction in the pressure to emigrate from Mexico over the long term requires sustained economic growth there, to which free trade with the United States can contribute.
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