The North American Trade Dependent Alliance (NATDA) was created seeing a need for the advocacy of the rights of NAFTA Trade Dependent (TD) visa holders, by a group of Trade Nationals (TN) and their spouses and children, the Trade Dependents, living in the United States and Canada.

In the four years since the inception of the NAFTA, the Article 1602 Working Group on Temporary Entry of Business Persons has been unable to resolve the issue of spousal employment for Trade Depedents. Each and every day of those four years, a number of Canadian and American citizens have been attempting to live normal lives without the right to work in their host countries, while their TN spouse works hard to contribute to the local economy and single-handedly support their families. These NAFTA families have been unable to receive any financial or emotional support for their sufferance from either their country of citizenship or their new country of residence.

It is the current goal of NATDA to publicize the issue of spousal employment for Trade Dependents in hope to see a resolution in 1998. NATDA also will continually provide emotional support and assistance to dependent visa holders across North America.