Robots will make this entire discussion obsolete.
The Mexican workers will be replaced in the end.
Economics was called “the dismal science” because it has very bad news to deliver.
The market takes no prisoners—and protecting local producers is a holding action at best. That does not make it bad policy, but everyone should be honest about how it will end.
That is not a justification for stupid trade policies like NAFTA which appears to have been designed to destroy American producers as quickly as possible.
Not really. Those robots will have to be designed and manufactured somewhere, and techs will be needed to run them, program them, and maintain them. There will be robots for that? They'll need to be designed, manufactured, and built somewhere too.
There question is where?
Besides, if we're all replaced by robots, who's going to buy their products?