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,