1999-0062-F

SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE

This FOIA request contains material related to the Bush Administration's role in negotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with Mexico and Canada. This request contains correspondence from many members of the Administration, members of Congress, and concerned trade and industry groups. The material consists of memoranda, reports, cables, letters, newspaper clippings, and assorted other material. Many of the Subject File documents and Staff Files deal with the domestic aspects of NAFTA, including the environmental impact of NAFTA and the effects of a free trade agreement on US agricultural interests, the US textile industry, and other US industries. Some of these files also contain material the Administration compiled for release to inform the public about the advantages of NAFTA. The files from the National Security Council (and, to a lesser extent the files of the Council of Economic Advisers) cover more international aspects of NAFTA, including memoranda of conversation between US, Mexican, and Canadian officials and studies of the state of Mexican political and economic affairs. It should be noted that most of these records are closed for national security reasons. Due to the restrictions of the Presidential Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act all decision making correspondence and memoranda have been removed, leaving approximately 19,000 pages of speech drafts, routine correspondence, press releases, routine reports, newspaper clippings, and reports created by external organizations in the open file.

Please note that a "*" indicates that a collection is entirely processed and open. A more detailed description of the materials is available in the finding aid for the office or category.

A "**" indicates files or documents that were incidentally processed as part of this FOIA request.

BUSH PRESIDENTIAL RECORDS: WHORM SUBJECT FILE