Video: 'NAFTA 20TH ANNIV - BUSH SIGNING NAFTA BILL'

(Thursday, December 17, 1992, Bush spoke at 2:32 p.m. EST) — U.S. President George H.W. Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari signed the The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) today in separate ceremonies (click here to watch today’s full ceremony in the main hall of the Organization of American States in Washington, D.C.), creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America

All three countries ratified NAFTA in 1993 after the addition of two side agreements, the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) and the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC).

The agreement came into force on January 1, 1994, and superseded the 1988 Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Canada.

The NAFTA trade bloc formed one of the largest trade blocs in the world by gross domestic product.

Most economic analyses indicated that NAFTA was beneficial to the North American economies and the average citizen, but harmed a small minority of workers in industries exposed to trade competition.

After U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, he sought to replace NAFTA with a new agreement, beginning negotiations with Canada and Mexico.

In September 2018, the United States, Mexico, and Canada reached an agreement to replace NAFTA with the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), which took effect on July 1, 2020.

The new law involved only small changes.