Negotiators finish the NAFTA text; three capitals prepare to sign

Eighteen months after Canada, Mexico, and the United States agreed to open talks, negotiators announced on August 12, 1992, that they had finished writing the North American Free Trade Agreement. The deal aimed to eliminate barriers to trade and investment across the three countries, forming one of the largest trade blocs in the world by economic output. Signing by the three heads of government would wait four more months, and ratification fights in all three legislatures would run into 1993…