PYQ Vault · Paper 2 · Regionalisation of World Politics
What were the limitations of NAFTA? How did its replacement by the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement counter them? Explain.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes
R1 NAFTA 1994, first pact of two developed states with an emerging-market economy → as trade policy it worked ($290 bn 1993 → $1.1 tn 2016) → limits lay in what it left unregulated → USMCA = rules written into the same market / R2 NAFTA’s record was two-sided → trade surged, jobs and wages did not (Scott) → the gap was regulatory, not commercial → USMCA rewrote the terms to close it
Body flow
no floor for labour/environment → Kuttner, “race to the bottom” → production follows the incentive → factories to lower-wage Mexico → US job losses + wage stagnation (Rodrik, Stiglitz) → ISDS lets firms sue governments over public-welfare policy → sovereignty eroded (Stiglitz) → Scott, The High Price of Free Trade → verdict: trade rose, jobs/wages did not → USMCA lays the missing floor (Mexican unionisation + wage bargaining; Scott: eases the race to the bottom) → environment widened + enforceable → rules of origin 62.5% → 75% + wage-rate rule → production steered to higher-wage plants (Hufbauer) → ISDS narrowed, dropped US-Canada → policy space restored
Counter-view
correction real but partial → rewrite driven as much by economic nationalism and China’s rise as by fairness → inequality between the three economies untouched
Conclusion routes
2 R1 USMCA regulates the market NAFTA only opened → deeper regional inequality stays / R2 aregulatory defect needed a regulatory cure → floor + content rules + investor limits deliver it → equity between the three economies still unfinished
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
