1.

This marks the 20th anniversary of the North American Free Trade Agreement, whose long-term effectiveness and/or damage is still being debated…

2.

Then presidential candidate H. Ross Perot said in 1992 that the “giant sucking sound” would be manufacturing jobs relocating to Mexico because of NAFTA…

3.

Perot was relocated on Forbes magazine’s latest list of richest Americans, released this March. Perot, who ranked 134th in 2012, fell to 446th despite his estimated wealth having remained at $3.5 billion…

4.

In 20 years since NAFTA, the marketplace has become increasingly global-which makes it alarming that, according to the Center for Applied Linguistics, only 10 percent of native born American speak a second language…

5.

In Europe, 53 percent of students have mastered at least one language other than their native tongue…

6.

On the plus side, the U.S., which lags behind nearly every other industrial nation in language instruction, saw a doubling of American college students studying Chinese languages…

7.

Though China is known for its prodigious brick-and-mortar manufacturing sector, six of the 10 richest Chinese, according to Forbes, made their money in either real esate or Internet ventures…

8.

Some Canadians are concerned that South Korea’s second-richest man, Chung Mong Koo ($6.8 billion), chairman of Hyundai, will increase his wealth significantly once a pending free-trade deal between the two countries goes into effect…

9.

With their country’s 6.1 percent tariff on car imports removed, Canadians are worried the market will produce a flood of Hyundai and Kias and, perhaps, a giant sucking sound…