ew by 37 percent from 1993 to 1996, reaching a record $57 billion.3 During this period, U.S. exports to Canada also increased by 33 percent, to $134 billion. Total two-way trade between the United States and Canada was $290 billion in 1996, while total two-way trade between the United States and Mexico was nearly $130 billion. Moreover, U.S. market share in Mexico increased from 69 percent of total Mexican imports in 1993 to 76 percent in 1996. During NAFTA's first three years, 39 of the 50 states increased their exports to Mexico; moreover, 44 states reported a growth in exports to Mexico during 1996 as the pace of U.S. exports to that country accelerated. NAFTA has shattered the myth that U.S. trade deficits destroy U.S. jobs. The combined U.S. trade deficit with Canada and Mexico increased during the first three years of NAFTA's implementation—from $9 billion in 1992 to $39.9 billion in 1996—because Canada and Mexico suffered economic recessions. U.S. exports to NAFTA countries currently support 2.3 million U.S. jobs. The largest post-NAFTA gains in U.S. exports to Mexico have been in such high-technology manufacturing sectors as transportation and electronic equipment, industrial machinery, plastics and rubber, fabricated metal products, and chemicals. NAFTA has encouraged U.S. and foreign investors with apparel and footwear factories in Asia to relocate their production operations to Mexico. U.S. Compliance with NAFTA: B In December 1995, the Clinton Administration postponed indefinitely the implementation of a NAFTA deadline to allow Mexican trucks to circulate in the southwest United States. U.S.-Mexico Trade Relations: B President Clinton's first official trip to Mexico this month came at a time in which relations between the two countries were at their lowest point in years. The trade and investment growth achieved during NAFTA's first three years has been eclipsed by the peso crisis and political turmoil in Mexico and by growing bilateral tensions over drug control policy, immigration, and the Helms-Burton Act's tightening of economic sanctions against Cuba. These tensions in U.S. Mexico relations have surfaced because the Clinton Administration did not assign a sufficiently high priority to Mexico during its first term in office. NAFTA, however, was never intended to be anything other than a free

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