Posted on 12/28/2002 7:10:41 AM PST by madfly
Angry Mexican farmers are threatening to block U.S.-Mexico border crossings on New Year's Day to protest the lifting of tariffs on agricultural products under free trade rules.
The farmers say they fear they will not be able to compete with U.S. and Canadian producers when tariffs are removed on January 1 as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The farmers and their supporters are calling on the Mexican government to do more to protect the agricultural sector.
President Vicente Fox refuses to re-negotiate the free trade agreement, but he has pledged to help the farmers compete with the United States and Canada.
Some information for this report provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.
Answer:
"why pick tomatoes" (in Mexico) "when you can cross the border" (into the USA) "and get it all..."
"a job picking tomatoes, free education for the kiddies, free health care for the whole clan....and....if you work it out just right...gov. subsidies out the yang."
And the American Taxpayers get the bill.
The Question:
How does the government of the United States subsidize businesses without officially subsidizing businesses?
"Migration is always a reflection of other social developments taking place," said Arnoldo Garcia. "Right now farmworkers are being displaced in Mexico, people are losing their jobs and land because of NAFTA."
Everyone understands this but you and a few others like the Wall St. Journal apparently.
How does the government of the United States subsidize businesses without officially subsidizing businesses?
Holy Bat Backdoor Deals! They keep our borders OPEN and make non-enforcement of our immigrations laws the official policy.
As the Feddies wrote every minute detail into NAFTA, they thought about Reagan.
As individuals, no. Once they get bought out by corporate agribusiness, the food will come from over the border, Mexicans will work as slaves on what was their own land, and the remnant will head north.
Per plan.
Feel free to post all the links you want, but Reagan was for free trade and legal immigration, not illegal immigration. Again, we all understand this but you.
That's right. The outcome of NAFTA is 100% counter to all the great things that its proponents said would happen. NAFTA was sold on the idea that it would make our southern neighbors more prosperous, create new jobs in America and reduce illegal immigration. Ha! Under NAFTA Illegal Immigration has gone from being a festering problem to a full blown crisis, hundreds of thousands of American Jobs have been shipped over the border and now even the struggling masses in central and south America don't like what NAFTA is producing.
This was quite predictable. I could never understand the sense of signing trade agreements with corrupt, backward 3rd world nations that have virtually nothing in common with the U.S. It was just asking for trouble.
So it was more than a little mystifying to me to hear George Bush Senior recently talk about what a great success NAFTA is. I guess like all the other original NAFTA backers he can't admit the treaty has been an unmitigated disaster...OR perhaps he truly does like the staggering problems NAFTA has created. Given the across the board failure of NAFTA my hunch is the latter.
Maybe George Junior will fix all this by signing more 10,000 page "Free Trade" agreements with nations that have nothing to trade with us but drugs and illegal aliens. Such insanity seems to be the norm in Washington these days.
Easily answered. Wealth is the end result of having a society that creates the social and legal infrastructure necessary for the creation and protection of wealth. Period. That is the difference between the first and the third worlds, and that is why Mexico is a hopeless basket case and will continue to be so until there is real change there.
As of now their legal infrastructure is an international joke (La Mordita is not a viable legal system) and their entire society suffers because of it. Mexico has as many billionaires as America does, yet Mexico is endlessly mired in poverty and despair. Corruption of the legal system does that to a nation.
How does the government of the United States subsidize businesses without officially subsidizing businesses?"
That's easy. By providing free medical care, free education and free food and shelter for "undocumented workers" while looking the other way as they stream over our borders. Of course, all of these goodies are provided at taxpayer expense. Of course.
That's the reason they CAN'T compete ---they only have cheap labor and that does nothing at all to make a farm efficient. Machines do that and the Mexican farmers have not been allowed to get machines. The reason a farmworker in Mexico can make $0.30 an hour but if the exact same guy gets to the USA, he can make $4.00 an hour is because here he gets to use decent machines. Cheap labor isn't all that cheap ---machines bring efficiency.
Exactly why it is necessary for us to close the border. As long as we remain a safety valve for their unwillingness to make the needed changes, it will never happen. And they won't stop coming till nearly their entire population is here.
I hope so too ----Bush seems very impressed with Fox and he might learn too many things from him ---do nothing for your country, let things get worse, and force your citizens to leave so they won't complain. I don't want to leave the USA.
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