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,

[bayourod]

"It doesn't prove that we shouldn't put up a fence and stop the wetback invasion. "

SEALING THE BORDER HAS BEEN PROVEN IMPOSSIBLE

We tried to seal 66 miles of the border in 1994 in “Operation Gate Keeper” designed by the military. It incorporated double and triple fences (some concrete and steel), guard towers, flood lights infrared cameras, ground sensors, patrol roads, horse patrols, ATV patrols, 16 helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, trucks, and a ratio of 32 guards per mile.

If it was successful the plan was to extend it from San Diego to El Paso. It wasn’t successful at all. See Inspector General’s Report ”experienced agents were estimating it was only 5-10 percent effective”

About two hundred thousand are caught each year trying to cross, and another estimated 30 to 40 thousand make it across undetected. They dig under, climb over and break through the fences.

That’s an average of 454 to 606 per mile per year. Extrapolated just to the 2000 mile Mexican border that would be about 1.2 million border jumpers per year. And we would still have the ones who enter from Canada or by air and water or legally on temporary visas and don’t return.

[Ciexyz]

The purpose of government is to codify laws to help certain groups of people to triumph over other groups of people (those who don't bribe and buy their way into the first group).

[John Filson]

Because we're selfish.

Oh, and it wouldn't have anything to do with the massive changes to immigration that came about in 1965. It wouldn't have anything to do with the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs over the past 50 years. It wouldn't have anything to do with the continual wave of layoffs and downturns that we've experienced since the 1970s when we failed to answer the threat of globalism to our internal economy.

But you go ahead and keep working to overwhelm our culture with Hispanic immigration and our manufacturing and services economy with outsourcing, offshoring, and imports.

Go right ahead. Just don't be too selfish about it.

[John Filson]

I could seal the border tomorrow, but you'd say it was racist. You'd prefer that America be overrun by Hispanics, but that's not racist to you.

[hedgetrimmer]

Bayourod has posted that picture of the fence so many times, they should start to charge him royalties.

[John Filson]

It's very unamerican of him to tell me that something as simple as defending our southern border is "impossible," don't you think?

[Nowhere Man]

You say America has the strongest economy ever? In the 1950s America was the economy of the world. We made and consumed our own products. Those were real jobs for real people, not the imaginary ones in the shrinking service sector we have now. In the 1950s we still had homesteading in Alaska. Property values were reasonable even in growing areas. You live in a fantasy world if you think America is stronger today economically than it was in 1950. But then again, you'll say anything to keep us in the status quo. That's what you do: shill for the status quo.

I know a part of that was that most of the world was blown up in World War II but even so we still produced most or all what we need or at least we had the capability to. We are lacking that today and I believe "free trade" or at least the free trade contingent fail to see that we are trading our souls, sovereingty and well being for the sake of quick profits. We are too busy looking to the next quarter instead of the next year, 5 years, 10 years or even 50 years. I talked to an online acquaintence in Holland where he weighed in on some of this and came up with the perfect "cliff notes" to this problem, a lot of the free trade business crowd are like "calculators without a vision." Plus in the 1950's and 1960's, we had vision, such as the space race for example, today we are lacking in that and sad to say, President Bush is a bit deflated in vision when you go beyond the War on Terror. I listen to Michael Savage a lot and he made a good point to where we need leadership and we ain't quite getting that.

[bayourod]

"I could seal the border tomorrow, but you'd say it was racist. "

Why would I say that?

[hedgetrimmer]

Yes it is.

[Nowhere Man]

To John Filson - don't blame bayourod. People like him have been told what to think

Unfortunatly, sticking to one's ideology strongly makes one blind to the problems out there if addressing them go against that ideology. There are times when you have to "think outside the box" especially what has worked before doesn't anymore.

[John Filson]

We are lacking [the ability to make everything we'd need for a world war] today

I agree, but I'm optimistic. I think we could quickly convert our outsourced economy back to a manufacturing one. However, with today's weapons, would a war last that long? It would take months, wouldn't it?

Yes, I agree: we need leadership we're not quite getting. I think this is because the old methods used by the Reaganites need updating. Today's politicians aren't bold enough to recognize it. There is also a lot of economic interest in maintaining the status quo. A lot of firms and political influence blocs alike have billions invested in the world as it stood in 1988 before the Berlin Wall fell.

We have to adapt!

[John Filson]

Trust me, you would.

[eskimo]

Just as Ross Perot perdicted. He was right on the money. BTW, who was president at that time? Wasn't it that guy who was getting his bone smoked in the oval office? The one that was impeached, disgraced, and lost his law license for 5 years? What was that liberal democrats' name again?

Apparently, it does not matter who the presidential caricature happens to be. The GOPers are planning to do the same damned dumb thing again. Guess the owners of the Dem/GOP farce are determined to get their way.

[Melas]

George Herbert Walker Bush was president at the time, so essentially you wasted all those allusions to Clinton.

[Nowhere Man]

It's very unamerican of him to tell me that something as simple as defending our southern border is "impossible," don't you think?

We can do it if we had the vision and desire to.

[John Filson]

Clinton did give MFN status to China, and he did look the other way during a lot of nasty leakage of missile and warhead technology. Oh, and he did pay the DPRK not to build nuclear weapons...

[Melas]

You can measure the economic health of a nation by its birth rate.

No, actually, the more affluent a nation, the lower its birth rate. 3rd world countries tend to have very high birth rates, like Mexico, the very subject of this thread.

[Happy2BMe]

Protestors Bombard LULAC Convention's Final Day

[John Filson]

No, actually, the more affluent a nation, the lower its birth rate.

Are you saying that 19th century America was poor? We were the richest nation on the planet. Yet our birthrate was phenomenal.

Moreover, name one "affluent" nation in the late 20th century that had real reason to be optimistic.

Affluence in the 20th century west has come with a real fear of growth. The "isms" of the 20th century put fear of life into us. Consider fascism, communism, and the new French philosophies -- each with their own "isms."

The west became afraid of its own shadow. The correlation of wealth to birthrate is only partly related.

So the American elites, and the western globalists have decided to replace our flagging growthrates with immigration, regardless of the cultural impact.

[bayourod]

I'll trust you this time but you better not be lying to me.