ported an estimated 2.3 million US jobs. This is an increase of 311,000 jobs, 189,000 because of exports to Canada, and 122,000 from exports to Mexico (Tracking US Trade, 2/98). In contrast according to The Economist only 117,000 Americans have signed up for benefits offered to workers displaced by NAFTA. The US must look to the Western Hemisphere for further economic prosperity. Within the last five years, the Western Hemisphere has become the largest regional destination for US exports, accounting for almost 40 percent of US trade in 1996. Goods exported to the Hemisphere in 1996 totaled $242 billion (Tracking US trade, 2/98). Latin America, including Mexico and the Caribbean Basin has a large consumer market, with a population estimated at more than 470 million. The total gross domestic product of Latin America and the Caribbean Basin was about $1.5 trillion in 1995, with growth expected to average 5 percent or more through the year 2000 (Dem. Leadership Council). The US supplies over two-fifths of the region's imports. There is no other part of the world where the United States is so competitively positioned. Twenty trade agreements have been negotiated within the hemisphere without US participation. The EU has agreed to sign a free trade agreement with the nations of MERCOSUR. MERCOSUR is the largest preferential trade agreement in Latin America. It consists of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. The MERCOSUR countries alone represent a market of 220 million consumers with a combined GDP of more than $1 trillion. Two-way trade between the US and MERCOSUR was about $30 billion in 1996 (US Trade Rep). Brazil is the eighth largest economy in the world and is the single largest economy among the US export markets in the Latin America and Caribbean region, with a GDP of $472.5 billion in 1994. US goods accounted for 21.1 percent of Brazil's total imports in 1995. Argentina is the second largest economy of the...
