And keep in mind that after NAFTA was adopted, one of Mexico's biggest exports to the U.S. became crude oil ... which doesn't involve much manufacturing employment at all. So the trade deficits were driven by a lot of complicated factors here.
The long story short here is this:
We had $75.5 billion of cross-border trade between the two countries in 1992, and the U.S. had a small trade surplus with Mexico.
We had $557 billion of cross-border trade in 2017, with a $60 billion trade deficit for the U.S.
My question is: Which of these two scenarios is actually better for the U.S.? Would you give up $480 billion of trade to restore a surplus with this trading partner?
Like I said ... I have yet to see an objective analysis of this issue that makes the case either way ... plenty of anecdotes from various industries and/or geographic locations (the article at the top of this thread, for example), but nothing comprehensive that tells the entire story.
Not sure what figures you're using. In 2017, the US trade in goods with Mexico was $243.3 billion in exports and $314.3 billion in imports for a deficit of $71.0 billion.
2017 : U.S. trade in goods with Mexico
And a critical question is what is the make-up of that $243.3 million is exports to Mexico as there is substantial cross border movement of parts going to US factories in Mexico for final assembly.
Another key question with Mexico and others is: of the imports from a nation, what amount of the total is from US owned factories and what part is an authentic product of the exporting nation.
And, again, there is no doubt that the reduction or elimination by NAFTA of tariffs on goods coming from Mexico caused the "giant sucking sound" of US plants and jobs moving to Mexico, economic activity once in the US moved to Mexico.
The US would be better off if most of that exported economic activity were still taking place here. It is not new economic activity, but largely relocated economic activity. Mexico has not created large, new home grown industries making products the world wants since NAFTA was passed. The increase in goods being exported comes largely from US plants relocated to Mexico.
40% of a Mexican import is American
Remove car imports, and U.S.-Mexico trade deficit disappears
And this from the second article.
Indeed, cars beat the next top four import categories -- electronic parts, food, computers and TVs -- by a mile. Even if you add the value of those four categories together, they still fall short of the value of all the cars brought across the border, according to figures compiled by Capital Economics. Their value would total a little over $71 billion.
Now how much of the autos and those other major categories do you think are actual Mexican products? How many Mexican brand cars have you owned, or Mexican brand computers or cell phones? Much of the food would probably be Mexican, though much would probably be US branded (And Hershey's chocolate).
A huge amount of this US/Mexico trade is nothing but USA brand parts and finished goods being move back and forth across the border, economic activity that was once most all located in the US. Plus, some of the goods are produced by foreign owned companies in Mexico and exported to the US.
My question is: Which of these two scenarios is actually better for the U.S.? Would you give up $480 billion of trade to restore a surplus with this trading partner?
A mostly irrelevant question because if the economic activity had not been moved to Mexico, it would be taking place elsewhere, much of it back in the USA, and the USA would be much better off.