NAFTA Gives Mexicans New Reasons to Leave Home

San Francisco Chronicls ^ | 10.15.98 | Robert Collier

[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,

[A. Pole]

sentiments about President Bush?

Why the sentiments about the head of the state are so central for you? Are you a monarchist?

[Age of Reason]

I don't give a damn about your world and its cheap whiz bang electronic gizmos.

I'd rather hunt and fish and sleep under the stars.

You can keep your made in China crap.

I prefer freedom and independence.

[Age of Reason]

Loosen that tin foil hat during this hot weather or else you'll get heat stroke

Are tin foil hats made in China too?

[Happy2BMe]

"The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else."

"Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star", 149 May 7, 1918

[John Filson]

The founding fathers had multiple points of view about protectionism. You can't claim to hold any sort of a pure point of view in that respect. Hamilton held very different views from Jefferson, as Michael Swanson points out in a review of Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton.

All your quotes add up to is one point of view. In any case, Jefferson didn't have to contend with the information age, Walmart, and the overwhelming success of global capitalism. He helped lay the conditions for globalism, but he wouldn't have been constrained by its success. He would have known that government-subsidized labor from a sworn enemy of the United States was something to blockade. He would have known that IT workers from a nation with starving people could be desperate enough to underbid American workers. He would have laughed at your pathetic attempts to put his ideas about post-colonial trade in a 21st century context.

[Age of Reason]

So?

Those ideas of Jefferson may have been good ideas in the early 1800s, when the oceans were enough to keep free trade from spiraling out of control.

Circumstances have changed.

Now we need human controls over greed, which has not changed.

[Age of Reason]

My post number, 146.

[John Filson]

Well put. Britain was using all sorts of nasty techniques to hurt the newly independent American states, and Jefferson thought it would be unprincipled. I wouldn't argue for any trade policies that would intentionally hurt the Chinese or Indian people, for example. Perhaps that's why Jefferson was less likely to advocate trade barriers?

[Toddsterpatriot]

Now we need human controls over greed, which has not changed.

Yeah, the Soviets thought they needed controls over greed. How'd that work for them again?

[hedgetrimmer]

Good one!

[Age of Reason]

Yeah, the Soviets thought they needed controls over greed. How'd that work for them again?

Well if you have a problem with controlling greed, we can just legalize all stealing and get it over with.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Well if you have a problem with controlling greed

Please, enlighten us. How do you control greed?

[Nowhere Man]

Whoa, dude! Hold the friendly fire man, I'm anti-CAFTA, pro fair trade, anti-Red China and anti-globalist. I'm just parodying the free trader nonsense where a while back, I made the comment that they "are like an 8-Track tape, an endless loop," when all they do to defend their position is bringing up cheap sugar, buggy whip makers, and Smoot-Hawley, in short my 8-Track parody is just a humorous attempt to show that's all they do when they are cornered with reality.

IIRC, Red China wasn't really a player in the global market until the late 1980's or so, even as late as 1984, finding something made in Red China was somewhat rare. Probably the 8-Track player I showed, the Panasonic Plunger was most likely made in Japan, being mid 1970's vintage.

In short, I'm just pulling the globalist, free traders chains here, maybe my message didn't quite hit the target, but even so, the free traders bring up the same arguements so much, they might as well put it on an 8-Track tape and run it over and over again.

I admit, I do love old electronic stuff, like to fix old radios and would like to tackle a TV or two from time to time. I do have an old 1970 Zenith color TV I'd like to get back into action but that's for another time.

So in short, I'm with ya, I'm just poking fun at the globalists and free traders. I do agree this is a serious game though and our voices are not being heard. It is a sellout of America pure and simple.

As to the old jalopy pic, the free traders will not stop until we are all driving around in old cars looking for work.

[Nowhere Man]

Those ideas of Jefferson may have been good ideas in the early 1800s, when the oceans were enough to keep free trade from spiraling out of control.

Circumstances have changed.

Now we need human controls over greed, which has not changed.

Exactly, the game has changed so much from 200 years ago, what worked then, might not work now. In short, we need to "think outside the box" on this one and we have to put America and her people's interests first. Free traders would sell their own mother if it would make a profit, at least that's the message I get from them.

[remember]

As I recall from many years ago the Europeans started raising tariffs in anticipation of the passage of Smoot Hawley and that hurt U.S. exports and caused the stock panic.

Do you have a source for that? I can't put any stock into the recollection of a nameless person off the internet. That's especially true when that person's prior recollection (that Smoot Hawley was passed before the crash) was incorrect.

[bayourod]

It read it in a book entitled "The Way The World Works" by Jude Wanniski about 20 years ago.

If you happen to come across a copy, it's enjoyable reading for non-economists. I think that was the book that introduced the Laffer Curve.

Jack Kemp might have been the person who suggested it to me. Somewhere I recall hearing it referred to as "the supply-siders' bible."

You won't agree with it if you are a protectionist but you might get some insight as to how us supply siders think.

[iconoclast]

The only people I know of who say things like that are the extreme Bush haters.

The president of U.S. has attempted to justify his Iraq decisions with a litany of lies from inception to this very day.

And, yes, I will forever despise and never forgive or forget this administration for it.

A President who insults and disrespects the citizenry this way deserves disrespect in return.

[iconoclast]

Why the sentiments about the head of the state are so central for you? Are you a monarchist?

Actually, and frighteningly, the messianic sentiments of the Bushbots come closer to being those of theocrats .... certainly not free, and free thinking citizens.

[A. Pole]

Why the sentiments about the head of the state are so central for you? Are you a monarchist?

Actually, and frighteningly, the messianic sentiments of the Bushbots come closer to being those of theocrats .... certainly not free, and free thinking citizens.

I doubt that these sentiments are close to messianic (Bush would have to be much more successful in his undertakings for that).

Rather I think it shows the evolution from republic to the imperial monarchy as it happened with Rome around time of Julius Caesar (Romans were convinced that they are still a republic several generations AFTER this Caesar!).

The republican or monarchical character of the nation has more with collective psychology and practice than with formal constitution. You can an actual republic with the king (Denmark, Sweden, Belgium etc ...) or a monarchy with the chief republican executive being the actual king (Rome after Caesar).

Loyalty, trust and love toward the king is a key virtue in a monarchy.

[MudSlide]

16,000 people to the oath to become American citizens on the 4th of July

The never did say how many people took the oath to become Mexican citizens

I wonder how many American women went to Mexico to have anchor babies last year or for that matter evcr