Posted on 07/03/2005 6:00:20 PM PDT by Coleus
When the North American Free Trade Agreement was being debated in 1993, the rhetoric from both the U.S. and Mexican governments was similarly emphatic.
NAFTA would help deter migration by creating new jobs and prosperity in Mexico, they said.
Several years later, NAFTA appears to have done just the opposite. While many Mexicans appreciate the elevated diplomatic status it has conferred upon their country, the trade pact has driven large numbers of farmers, small-business owners and laborers out of work. These people are left with few options but to seek a better life in the United States.
NAFTA has helped part of the Mexican economy -- large industry, agribusiness and the average consumer -- by accelerating capital investment, boosting trade and lowering prices. Industrial productivity has increased, Internet use is becoming more common and store shelves are packed with the latest consumer goods from all over the world.
However, although the Mexican government does not keep reliable statistics on unemployment, experts say the jobs created by NAFTA are not as numerous as the jobs eliminated.
FARMING WOES In Tlacuitapa, farming has never looked worse, and local farmers blame foreign trade.
As part of NAFTA, corn and dairy tariffs were cut, bringing floods of cheaper U.S. corn. Tlacuitapa farmers, whose two main products are corn and milk, found the prices offered by local distributors slashed to the bone.
The region, where farm machines are few, the land is rocky and rainfall is erratic, simply could not compete with the mechanized, nature-blessed bounty of U.S. agriculture. Those who had the misfortune to live in the Tlacuitapa region -- and in many other regions throughout Mexico -- had no way of making a decent living.
At around the same time that NAFTA took effect, the Mexican government eliminated farm subsidy payments,
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Source: Save Your Job, Save Our Country, by Ross Perot, p. 72 Jan 1, 1993
Anti-NAFTA experts mentioned that the trade pact would undermine Mexican agriculture to the point where Mexican peasants would look for jobs in the US. That wasn't Perot's main point, but it looks like he may have been right about the overall effect on immigration to the US. Perot stressed the effect of NAFTA on American jobs, but it wasn't the whole of the argument that he and others made against NAFTA.
They don't if they have their own wells. Did you know that the system of dams and canals that deliver water to farms were built by the state and federal government to promote farming where natural conditions would make farming difficult?
Water rights are a big issue in areas where natural rainfall does not occur at the right time to support farming. Perhaps you think each farmer should work it out for himself? If each farmer worked it out for himself, then perhaps fewer farms would exist. That would be the free market too.
Why don't Americans demand a truly level playing field in trade, instead of allowing the third world to have the competitive advantage through trade agreements?
You don't want a level playing field, you want one that constructed to your advantage. There is no free lunch. You like the government handouts and rail against the rules that come with it.
Where have you been? This discussion has been going on at least since the 60s when I remember a friend's father, who was in the car business, saying "you better learn to speak Japanese".
I remember those discussions well. The irony is that Japan has offshored and outsourced its own economy now. When you "buy Sony," you're often buing a Chinese-built gizmo.
Depends on how you define major damage. NK has had Nuclear power since 1967. They signed on to the non-proliferation treaty and were subject to inspections. Now they have withdrawn from the treaty (2003) the inspectors have been kicked out and they have restarted their nuclear weapons program.
Yes!
In the 1950s America was the economy of the world.
You're funny. Yeah, all we need to do to recreate the 1950s is to destroy all of Europe's and Asia's economies. You saying we should fight WWIII so that high school graduates can have the high standard of living they had after WWII?
Shhh! Take care. Statements like that could convert you to non-person status like PJB!
Not prudent since the New World Order was proclaimed.
Because of my previous experiences with protectionists and their very weak math skills, I'll have to ask you what you think US equities are currently worth and where you got the absurd idea that foreigners own more than 50%? Link maybe?
Loosen that tin foil hat during this hot weather or else you'll get heat stroke.
Globalism has also made many American factory towns into near ghost towns, throwing Americans out of their livelihoods, homes, and neighborhoods.
Globalists remind me of those dictators--like Stalin--who forcibly uproot millions of people to make them live and work in ways the dictators consider more efficient.
Free trade ideology is doing the same thing: uprooting people and turning their lives upside down . . .
. . . but under the excuse that it's not the globalists, but the "free market" doing it.
Like Stalin and other perpetrators of mass economic migration failures . . .
. . . the instigators of free trade say all the suffering of their victims is for their own good and they should just suck it up . . .
. . . and let the globalists do what the globalists think is best for everybody.
Then I'd better loosen mine and Jefferson needed to loosen his:
"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains." -Thomas Jefferson
No it isn't. The major cause is the politicians from both parties who refuse to build a wall and deport illegals.
Why don't you and Jefferson name a few protectionist countries that have better economies than free trade America?
Many young American couples realize that they can't support a large family when they are also forced to support the welfare state too.
Not a bit, but I'm a stickler for accuracy, and I won't even let unfounded charges against Slick slide.
[[Not a bit, but I'm a stickler for accuracy, and I won't even let unfounded charges against Slick slide.]]
Oh, so you are saying that Slick Willy is not an impeached, disgraced, disbarred ex-president? What is he then? I await your explaination.
You're setting a new record for reading way too much into way too little. I'll be clear, I meant that you were wrong about who signed NAFTA, period. That an nothing more. All this pro-Clinton BS is all in your mind.
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