Mexican farmers or peasants before free trade made modest living by selling their products while being protected by tariffs. Now they cannot compete with industrial agrobusiness.
I don't doubt you just don't know what you are referencing..
It is impressive how little doubts if any the freetraders have.
Rock on, ADM. Rock on, Cargill.
While I am touched by your concern for Mexican peasants, please consider that, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative:
In 1993, before NAFTA, American exporters who wanted to sell to Mexico faced trade barriers of about 10 percent, nearly five times the 2 percent rate that the United States. imposed on Mexican goods. With NAFTA, Mexico's average tariff has already fallen to about 2 percent, creating more export opportunities for American farmers.
--Two-way trade between the United States and Mexico increased more than 55 percent since 1994, reaching more than $11.6 billion.
--Record levels of exports to Mexico in 2000 include red meats, processed fruits and vegetables, poultry meat, snack foods, fresh fruits, feeds and fodder and rice. This broad cross section of commodities suggests the benefits of the NAFTA are widely distributed across United States agriculture.
--U.S. pork producers credit NAFTA with their gains in market share in Mexico for pork products, which increased 130 percent between 1994 and 2000.
From 1993-2000:
--U.S. soybean volume exports doubled to Mexico.
--U.S. beef and veal volume exports increased nearly five-fold to Mexico.
--U.S. corn volume exports increased eighteen-fold to Mexico. Mexico chose to expedite its market openings for corn under NAFTA, to provide lower cost food to its increasingly urban population and to ensure it had sufficient animal feed.
However, Mexico is allowing enough US corn to enter the country without adding the tariff that corn prices in Mexico do get depressed and the farmers raise hell. The Mex Govt raises the tariff temporarily and the cycle repeats.
The justification for not adding the allowable tariffs is to keep consumer prices down.
It is commonly stated that NAFTA created the farm crisis in Mexico, but actually the farm/food crisis created NAFTA.
Mexico has had this looming food crisis for many years. It is attributable to the fact that over half the cultivation in Mexico is on the ag collectives known as "ejidos" that are small acreage and very unproductive.
At about the same time NAFTA was signed, the Mex Govt put in place the method by which the ejidos would be dis-incorporated and title on the collective lands would be passed to the individual farmers. The farmers would then be able to buy, sell, or lease these lands.
The inflow of US capital associated with NAFTA would facilitate these small ag plots being combined into large, modern farming operations, which would enable Mexico to become more able to grow their own food.
Market economist DeSoto was a consultant in devising this plan.
For various reasons, this plan has not proceeded as planned and 2008 is getting closer.