(2018-0516-F) North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation

The materials in FOIA 2018-0516-F are a selective body of documents responsive to the topic of the FOIA. Researchers should consult the archivist about related material. The researcher submitted a request for records concerning the North American Agreement on Labor Cooperation (NAALC) during NAFTA negotiations conducted between March and August 1993 by the U.S. Trade Representative, Mickey Kantor. Appointed the United States Trade Representative in 1993, Ambassador Mickey Kantor led the negotiations that created NAFTA and its supplemental agreements. The NAALC is a supplemental (or parallel) agreement reached in 1993 during negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement, a trilateral trade deal between the United States, Canada, and Mexico that replaced the US-Canada Free Trade Agreement enacted in 1989. The NAALC went into effect alongside NAFTA in January 1994. The NAALC and its companion, the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation (NAAEC), were agreements concerning labor standards, designed to accompany the primary trade accord. The NAALC was designed to improve working conditions and living standards, encourage compliance with labor laws, and “provide the ability to invoke trade sanctions as a last resort for non-enforcement of labor law by a Party.”