NEW YORK: U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Mexico President Carlos Salinas de Gortari issued a statement suggesting a new trade agreement, city leaders almost instantly knew they wanted San Antonio to be “NAFTA City.”Negotiations for the North American Free Trade Agreement began a year later, and San Antonio Mayor Nelson Wolff began lobbying, mainly with Salinas, to have the trade pact initialed in a ceremony in the Alamo City.
The idea of a U.S., Mexico and Canada trade agreement had a large appeal for San Antonio. Instead of being on the sidelines of east-west trade flows, trade would shift to a north-south axis, putting San Antonio geographically in the middle of an expanding stream of commerce.
“NAFTA would create the largest trading bloc in the world, with a combined economic output of more than $6 trillion and 360 million from the Arctic atop Canada to the tropical jungles of southern Mexico. The proposed treaty would dismantle tariffs and trade barriers over a 15-year period. It would enhance the ability of the Western Hemisphere to compete with the European and Asian trade blocs,” Wolff wrote in “Mayor.”
