Immigrant Surge is Tied to the Failure of NAFTA

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StormRider

Diamond Member
Mar 12, 2000
8,324
2
0
I like NAFTA and the concept of free trade and market. I read that initially it created a lot of jobs in Mexico but then the China emerged as a cheaper labor force so a lot of companies prefer to open factories in China.

There will be ups and downs with a free market economy but I think in the long run it is good for everyone. Also, from the article you pasted, it said that our subsidized corn drove their farmers out of market. Subsidizing our corn isn't exactly following the principles of a free market.

As China continues to grow, their labor force will demand higher wages. After awhile, it will become more economical to use Mexico as a labor force and then more jobs will be created there and hopefully Mexico will prosper..
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
81
Originally posted by: 1EZduzit
Originally posted by: charrison
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Originally posted by: charrison
Nafta has helped mexico, but is still not a cure for their political system which has severe problems. Mexico should be a wealthycountry based on its natural resounes, but it remains a poor country because of its political system.


-That signs deals like NAFTA.



And contrary to what you beleive, nafta has helped both the US and Mexico. Because of NAFTA there are not malls popping up on the the Texas border where Mexicans are spending their money here. For some odd reason, products are cheaper to purcase in the US.
So if it's good for Texas then it's good for the rest of us??? Sorry, but that doesn't work for me.

McALLEN, Texas -- Hidalgo County in the southernmost tip of Texas is the poorest county of 250,000 or more people in the United States, with nearly half its families living below the poverty line. Vendors hawk bootleg DVDs and homemade tacos out of the back of pickup trucks. Stray dogs roam the scrubland along highways.

Hidalgo is also home to one of America's highest-grossing shopping malls, the sprawling La Plaza Mall of McAllen, Texas. Owned by Simon Property Group, the nation's No. 1 mall developer, La Plaza features valet parking, trendy clothing chains like Abercrombie & Fitch and Banana Republic, and high-end jewelers Swarovski and Helzberg Diamonds. La Plaza generates monthly sales of well over $450 a square foot, compared with a national mall average of $392.

Next year, Simon, of Indianapolis, plans to open the 600,000-square-foot Palms Crossing shopping center a half-mile away. In nearby Mercedes, Simon is opening the $68 million Rio Grande Valley Premium Outlets, a 400,000-square-foot, upscale outlet, in November.

The reason: Mexican shoppers, both rich and poor, are pouring into the area, making it the equivalent of Fifth Avenue for northern Mexico's consumer class. Border agencies tally nearly 40 million legal visits a year by Mexicans coming to Texas for leisure activities. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas figures they spent $3 billion on merchandise in Texas border counties in 2004, the latest data available, up from around $1.6 billion a decade earlier. In the past 10 years, retail sales in McAllen have risen more than 75 percent, nearly double the nationwide pace of 40 percent. Per-capita sales in McAllen are twice the national average, according to the census.
Shopping on the Mexican border

Those "poor Mexicans" must be spending all the money that the illegals are sending home. And I thought they were starving to death???


I am not saying it was only good for Texas, I am just saying it is a sign of improvement in Mexico. However, in relative comparison, the Mexican economy still sucks big time compared to ours.
 

Steeplerot

Lifer
Mar 29, 2004
13,051
6
81
Originally posted by: 1EZduzit

Those "poor Mexicans" must be spending all the money that the illegals are sending home. And I thought they were starving to death???

If you read the linked information it is not the northern states that are hit by nafta, food growing in the northern deserts of mexico?

But it has only exacerbated their plight in the nation?s south and midsection?states like Oaxaca and Zacatecas

(where most of the people are) the northern states are industry. Those are not the people coming up here.
 

1EZduzit

Lifer
Feb 4, 2002
11,834
1
0
Originally posted by: charrison


I am not saying it was only good for Texas, I am just saying it is a sign of improvement in Mexico. However, in relative comparison, the Mexican economy still sucks big time compared to ours.

Whatever, however you chose to interpret it. I have my own iterpretation though. I've pretty much made up my mind that the next presidential election I will be voting for whoever is NOT from a southern state.
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
81
Originally posted by: 1EZduzit
Originally posted by: charrison


I am not saying it was only good for Texas, I am just saying it is a sign of improvement in Mexico. However, in relative comparison, the Mexican economy still sucks big time compared to ours.

Whatever, however you chose to interpret it. I have my own iterpretation though. I've pretty much made up my mind that the next presidential election I will be voting for whoever is NOT from a southern state.

There location does not guaranteee any particulare stance on mexico. Immigration is spliting both parties fairly well.
 

1EZduzit

Lifer
Feb 4, 2002
11,834
1
0
Originally posted by: charrison
Originally posted by: 1EZduzit
Originally posted by: charrison


I am not saying it was only good for Texas, I am just saying it is a sign of improvement in Mexico. However, in relative comparison, the Mexican economy still sucks big time compared to ours.

Whatever, however you chose to interpret it. I have my own iterpretation though. I've pretty much made up my mind that the next presidential election I will be voting for whoever is NOT from a southern state.

There location does not guaranteee any particulare stance on mexico. Immigration is spliting both parties fairly well.

While that is of course true, I expect the immigration matter will be handled by then.
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
81
Originally posted by: 1EZduzit
Originally posted by: charrison
Originally posted by: 1EZduzit
Originally posted by: charrison


I am not saying it was only good for Texas, I am just saying it is a sign of improvement in Mexico. However, in relative comparison, the Mexican economy still sucks big time compared to ours.

Whatever, however you chose to interpret it. I have my own iterpretation though. I've pretty much made up my mind that the next presidential election I will be voting for whoever is NOT from a southern state.

There location does not guaranteee any particulare stance on mexico. Immigration is spliting both parties fairly well.

While that is of course true, I expect the immigration matter will be handled by then.

I would not count on it. The only real fix is a fix for mexican economy. As long as our economy remains so much better than Mexicos, there is going to be a strong desire for peple to come to the US(legally or illegally).
 

Steeplerot

Lifer
Mar 29, 2004
13,051
6
81
Originally posted by: charrison
Immigration is spliting both parties fairly well.



I wouldn't count on that yourself. Now that the hype is blowing over people are seeing what this is really about, another right-wing low-wage corporate scam.

 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
81
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Originally posted by: charrison
Immigration is spliting both parties fairly well.



I wouldn't count on that yourself. Now that the hype is blowing over people are seeing what this is really about, another right-wing low-wage corporate scam.

OTher than there is a significant chunk of republicans that want to build a fence and stop bring a stop to illegal immigration. A decent chunk of democrats want the same, but you only bother to label the republicans xenophobes for this stance.

Your bias is quite obvious.

OF course if one wants to help get the illiegals amnesty, you want to say they are for low wages. It seems you want to sit on both sides of the fence and complain.
 

Steeplerot

Lifer
Mar 29, 2004
13,051
6
81
Originally posted by: charrison
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Originally posted by: charrison
Immigration is spliting both parties fairly well.



I wouldn't count on that yourself. Now that the hype is blowing over people are seeing what this is really about, another right-wing low-wage corporate scam.

OTher than there is a significant chunk of republicans that want to build a fence and stop bring a stop to illegal immigration. A decent chunk of democrats want the same, but you only bother to label the republicans xenophobes for this stance.

Your bias is quite obvious.

OF course if one wants to help get the illiegals amnesty, you want to say they are for low wages. It seems you want to sit on both sides of the fence and complain.


Fence is dead in the water, fences do nothing. Won't happen, nor would it help if you don't stop the problem.

More Americans would prefer workplace sanctions to reduce illegal immigration from Mexico rather than fences or additional border agents, according to a new national poll.Here

A new field poll finds 75 percent of California voters surveyed support U.S. citizenship for illegal immigrants.And here

Siding with the KKK and nazis are not going to win over any hearts to the GOP, that is except those who agree with them anyway.

The dixiecrats have been republican since nixon, sorry.
 

1EZduzit

Lifer
Feb 4, 2002
11,834
1
0
Originally posted by: charrison

I would not count on it. The only real fix is a fix for mexican economy. As long as our economy remains so much better than Mexicos, there is going to be a strong desire for peple to come to the US(legally or illegally).

You can't fix their economy for them anymore then we can give Iraq a democracy. I think the problem is their goverment so??? What to do??

We can however track down illegals and punish their employers until they are no longer breaking the law. Amnesty isn't the answer, it will just encourage more people to sneak into the country. That leaves us with a guest worker program. At least we would have some control over their working consitions, benifits, etc instead of just sticking the taxpayers with everything.
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
81
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Originally posted by: charrison
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Originally posted by: charrison
Immigration is spliting both parties fairly well.



I wouldn't count on that yourself. Now that the hype is blowing over people are seeing what this is really about, another right-wing low-wage corporate scam.

OTher than there is a significant chunk of republicans that want to build a fence and stop bring a stop to illegal immigration. A decent chunk of democrats want the same, but you only bother to label the republicans xenophobes for this stance.

Your bias is quite obvious.

OF course if one wants to help get the illiegals amnesty, you want to say they are for low wages. It seems you want to sit on both sides of the fence and complain.


Fence is dead in the water, fences do nothing. Won't happen, nor would it help if you don't stop the problem.

More Americans would prefer workplace sanctions to reduce illegal immigration from Mexico rather than fences or additional border agents, according to a new national poll.Here

A new field poll finds 75 percent of California voters surveyed support U.S. citizenship for illegal immigrants.And here

Siding with the KKK and nazis are not going to win over any hearts to the GOP, that is except those who agree with them anyway.

I would disagree a fence would help, but it would only slow the problem. Granted it would probably greatly slow the problem. However I dont think it is the right solution. Fixing the root cause is the key, bt the root cause is the disparity between the US and Mexican economy. And that disparity is not going away anytime soon.

 

Steeplerot

Lifer
Mar 29, 2004
13,051
6
81
Originally posted by: charrison

I would disagree a fence would help, but it would only slow the problem. Granted it would probably greatly slow the problem. However I dont think it is the right solution. Fixing the root cause is the key, bt the root cause is the disparity between the US and Mexican economy. And that disparity is not going away anytime soon.
And if not then the immigrants will continue to stream in.

NAFTA need major reform, or we are going to be having many more visitors.
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
81
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Originally posted by: charrison

I would disagree a fence would help, but it would only slow the problem. Granted it would probably greatly slow the problem. However I dont think it is the right solution. Fixing the root cause is the key, bt the root cause is the disparity between the US and Mexican economy. And that disparity is not going away anytime soon.
And if not then the immigrants will continue to stream in.

NAFTA need major reform, or we are going to be having many more visitors.

There maybe problems with nafta, but the problem really exists with the mexican goverment and culture. THe mexican goverment needs significant reform. You must remember Mexica was not utopia before nafta and it appears to be off today than before nafta.
 

Steeplerot

Lifer
Mar 29, 2004
13,051
6
81
Originally posted by: charrison
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Originally posted by: charrison

I would disagree a fence would help, but it would only slow the problem. Granted it would probably greatly slow the problem. However I dont think it is the right solution. Fixing the root cause is the key, bt the root cause is the disparity between the US and Mexican economy. And that disparity is not going away anytime soon.
And if not then the immigrants will continue to stream in.

NAFTA need major reform, or we are going to be having many more visitors.

There maybe problems with nafta, but the problem really exists with the mexican goverment and culture. THe mexican goverment needs significant reform. You must remember Mexica was not utopia before nafta and it appears to be off today than before nafta.


NAFTA is not mexicos deal it is our corruption.

The number of immigrants to the United States from Mexico actually decreased by 18 percent in the three years before NAFTA's implementation. But in the first eight years of NAFTA, the annual number of immigrants from Mexico increased by more than 61% percent.

It is not mainly mexicos fault, It is "free-trade" low wage conservative scams like NAFTA that economiclly carpet-bomb neighboring countries for our profit.

Mexicos corrupt government is just as bad though, I am sure they are not crying over 12 million farmers who are mainly native american anyhow. We know how mexico loves them. *cough cough* Zapista slaughter.
 

3chordcharlie

Diamond Member
Mar 30, 2004
9,859
1
81
Mexico's politicians haven't helped the people there, but claiming that NAFTA has helped Mexico is beyond ridiculous. The standard of living in Mexico, and particularly the portion of the poulation living in abject poverty have become much worse since NAFTA.
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
81
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Originally posted by: charrison
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Originally posted by: charrison

I would disagree a fence would help, but it would only slow the problem. Granted it would probably greatly slow the problem. However I dont think it is the right solution. Fixing the root cause is the key, bt the root cause is the disparity between the US and Mexican economy. And that disparity is not going away anytime soon.
And if not then the immigrants will continue to stream in.

NAFTA need major reform, or we are going to be having many more visitors.

There maybe problems with nafta, but the problem really exists with the mexican goverment and culture. THe mexican goverment needs significant reform. You must remember Mexica was not utopia before nafta and it appears to be off today than before nafta.


NAFTA is not mexicos deal it is our corruption.

The number of immigrants to the United States from Mexico actually decreased by 18 percent in the three years before NAFTA's implementation. But in the first eight years of NAFTA, the annual number of immigrants from Mexico increased by more than 61% percent.

It is not mainly mexicos fault, It is "free-trade" low wage conservative scams like NAFTA that economiclly carpet-bomb neighboring countries for our profit.

Mexicos corrupt government is just as bad though, I am sure they are not crying over 12 million farmers who are mainly native american anyhow. We know how mexico loves them. *cough cough* Zapista slaughter.

You do know that correltion does noy mean it is the cause.
 

Proletariat

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2004
5,614
0
0
Originally posted by: charrison
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Originally posted by: charrison
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Originally posted by: charrison

I would disagree a fence would help, but it would only slow the problem. Granted it would probably greatly slow the problem. However I dont think it is the right solution. Fixing the root cause is the key, bt the root cause is the disparity between the US and Mexican economy. And that disparity is not going away anytime soon.
And if not then the immigrants will continue to stream in.

NAFTA need major reform, or we are going to be having many more visitors.

There maybe problems with nafta, but the problem really exists with the mexican goverment and culture. THe mexican goverment needs significant reform. You must remember Mexica was not utopia before nafta and it appears to be off today than before nafta.


NAFTA is not mexicos deal it is our corruption.

The number of immigrants to the United States from Mexico actually decreased by 18 percent in the three years before NAFTA's implementation. But in the first eight years of NAFTA, the annual number of immigrants from Mexico increased by more than 61% percent.

It is not mainly mexicos fault, It is "free-trade" low wage conservative scams like NAFTA that economiclly carpet-bomb neighboring countries for our profit.

Mexicos corrupt government is just as bad though, I am sure they are not crying over 12 million farmers who are mainly native american anyhow. We know how mexico loves them. *cough cough* Zapista slaughter.

You do know that correltion does noy mean it is the cause.

You really should learn to spell.
 

daniel49

Diamond Member
Jan 8, 2005
4,814
0
71
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Exellent article on what is going on in mexico.

On May 14 of this year, the world was shocked and sickened by the news that 18 people who had crossed the Mexican border into the U.S. were found suffocated to death in an abandoned tractor-trailer truck in Victoria, Texas. Four of those who died in that trailer were from Central America, one was from the Dominican Republic, and 13 were from Mexico. They were among dozens of people packed into the locked trailer, which was being used to transport these immigrant workers to Houston.

If the dead could speak, the stories of those who died in that trailer would paint a picture of back- breaking labor in the drought-stricken pueblos of Mexico. Their stories would tell of ruined dreams, parched like a field of dried cornstalks--and of lives ground down by the machinery of imperialism. It was U.S. imperialism that stretched out its hand and tugged these immigrants toward their last gamble on a future, that beckoned them forward to step into that trailer of death and then bolted the door and cut off the air.

The 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)--a key part of U.S. imperialism's "development plan" for Mexico--has the Mexican economy caught in a chokehold. And the systematic ruin and death of millions of campesinos is part of that plan.
A Countryside Without Campesinos

Some time in early May, Oscar Gonzalez, 18 years old, began the journey that would end his life. Oscar was from the town of Plan de Iguala in San Luis Potosí, a state in central Mexico that for years has suffered from a devastating drought. Since he was 7 years old, Oscar had worked with his father on their small plot of land.

Oscar figured that if he could farm with a tractor instead of a machete his family could make a living. He wanted to go to the U.S. to make money to buy a tractor. In the U.S. there are two tractors for every farmer. In Mexico there is one tractor for every 50 campesinos. What Oscar might not have realized is that under the "development plan" of the U.S. and Mexican rulers, his family's farm--and those of countless other rural families--was meant to fail, no matter how hard he and his family worked.

As the NAFTA treaty was being negotiated, a high official of Mexico's Department of Agriculture said: "The possibility of expelling 15 million Mexicans from their lands was considered acceptable, an undesirable but necessary effect of the modernization of the rural productive apparatus."

Another Mexican government official said: "In the Mexican countryside there are millions of extra campesinos. The population should be reduced from 25 million to around 5 million."

Following the dictates of world finance capital, the Mexican government is driving millions of campesinos off their land--a wrenching process that means tearing out Mexico's campesino roots. Mexico's role in the globalization chain gang is a "maquiladora nation." Maquiladoras are foreign-owned factories that produce goods for export, and they have little connection with the national economy. The pieces assembled by low-paid Mexican workers are imported--and the finished products are then exported.

"Free trade" under imperialism means free exploitation of the people and resources, as the national economy of a country like Mexico is stripped of import taxes or laws that protect the economy from total manipulation and control by huge multinational corporations. The free-trade fairy tale says that "liberalizing the markets" causes each developing nation to find its "niche" in the world market, "producing what it produces best." This "comparative advantage" supposedly acts as a "motor of development" and raises the standard of living of the poor. But in the real world, the result is that Third World governments compete over providing the most "exploitable" work force to attract foreign investment.

In the early 1990s, the Mexican government put into place laws that allowed huge corporations to take over vast amounts of land and foreign investors, mainly from the U.S., and to bring strategic sectors of the Mexican economy under their direct control. The government agency (Conasupo) that used to buy agricultural products from the campesinos was abolished. The campesinos were abandoned to the brutalities of the world market. Credit was cut off to the food-producing sector at the same time as millions of tons of food imports from the U.S. poured in. Hundreds of thousands of small businesses folded. 600 campesinos are forced from their land every day.

The Mexican government subsidizes corporations who export from Mexican soil. The displaced peasants who immigrate to the United States subsidize the survival of millions of Mexican people.
Living on Less Than a Dollar a Day

Ricardo Gonzalez, Oscar Gonzalez's cousin, left behind his wife Alicia and a one-year-old son. "He said he was going to the United States because he wanted to make a better life for his boy," said Alicia. Ricardo wanted to add a kitchen to his house so his wife could cook indoors, and to dig a well nearby so they wouldn't have to bathe in the lake. Ricardo grew sorghum, a crop for which there is no market due to huge U.S. imports. Alicia continued, "He wanted to stay, but he said that here in Plan de Iguala, there is nothing." So he crossed the border with Oscar. Ricardo's body was returned home and buried next to his cousin Oscar.

One-quarter of Mexico's population--25 million people--live in the countryside, dispersed in 198,000 pueblitos of less than 2,500 people. Six out of ten campesinos are subsistence farmers who eat what they produce. Two out of three campesinos must work as jornaleros (day laborers) or at some other job in order to survive.

The most extreme poverty in Mexico is found in the countryside, primarily in the indigenous areas. Twelve million people live on less than $1 per day. But they often live on land that is strategic in resources and "development potential." Another imperialist "development" scheme, Plan Puebla-Panama, is designed to complete the process of turning millions of campesinos into propertyless proletarians. (See "Plan Puebla-Panama and the Nightmare of Imperialist `Progress,' " RW #1184, available online at rwor.org)

The NAFTA treaty has spread ruin throughout all social classes in Mexico--except for those who have connections with imperialism and are able to help facilitate its exploitation of the Mexican people. Among the "winners" under NAFTA are those in the Mexican elite who operate high exploitation agriculture--like the Fox family enterprises, whose vegetable export ranch utilizes child labor. Another who has profited is Javier Usabiaga, Fox's secretary of agriculture, known as the "King of Garlic." He is known in Guanajuato for renting land from campesinos for his garlic export business and returning it with a depleted water table.

Bimbo, the largest food producer in Mexico, has helped displace Mexican grains from the market by buying cheaper U.S. grain. Grupo Maseca, which owns Mission Tortillas in the U.S., is the largest producer of tortillas and corn flour in the world. It has been able to expand its business using imports of U.S. corn. The corporation has also displaced native corn growers in Guatemala by flooding the Guatemalan market with corn flour.
The Ruining of Corn Farmers

Elisendo Cabanas, 27 years old, father of two, left his small village of Guadalupe de Tulcingo and ended up dead in the trailer in Texas. He told his mother before he left, "I have to go for my children and my wife." Elisendo's brother Adolfo said, "We don't have a choice. There are no jobs here. There is nothing he could do. Why come back? To work in the fields for $2 or $3 a day?" He remembered Elisendo saying, "I want to live better so that my son can go to school."

Tulcingo is in the "Mixteca Poblano," a Mixtec Indian region in the mountains of Puebla in southern Mexico. Most people here only own less than a hectare of land and cannot survive by subsistence farming. Some are trapped in debt peonage by rich landowners and are forced to migrate every season to the industrialized farms in northern Mexico to work off their debt. The towns have become crowded with maquiladoras and the misery that they create.

Maquiladora production has penetrated into the households of the indigenous people in the mountains of Puebla. Now many indigenous women labor in solitude in their homes or backyards, making products for export. They are paid $20 a week.

90% of the people in this region depend on money sent by immigrants working in El Norte. These workers send back $800 million to Puebla every year. Many from Puebla migrate to New York--and several people from the area worked in the World Trade Center and died in the 9/11 attacks.

Today Mexico produces more things than ever before, but it no longer produces the food it eats. And decisions relating to Mexico's food--whether its people will eat and what the people eat--are now in the hands of the U.S. 60% of Mexico's food is imported from the U.S. The Mexican government spends roughly $10 billion a year on food imports--roughly the same amount of money sent back home by Mexican immigrants working in the U.S.

With NAFTA, cereal grains have poured into Mexico from the United States. Almost half of the campesinos forced to leave the countryside were producers of staple grains like corn. Grain production is controlled on both sides of the border by huge agro-industrial corporations like Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland. Prices of grains in Mexico have risen 257% since the signing of the NAFTA treaty. Close to 80% of Mexican workers cannot afford to buy the basic necessities of life.

Corn has historically been at the basis of small agriculture in Mexico and is the staple food of millions of campesinos. At the time NAFTA was being negotiated, corn was the main crop cultivated by Mexico's campesinos and accounted for 60% of land under cultivation. About 10 million campesinos depended directly on corn for their livelihood.

But corn is a crop grown for consumption and not for export--so the Mexican government considers its cultivation as "non-productive" and a "drain" on the economy. The government provides no credit to basic food producers. And the cost of fertilizer, water, and electricity is much higher in Mexico than in the U.S. Even if campesinos grew a surplus, they cannot sell it because they don't have connections with the buyers, who are mainly multi-national corporations.

Mexican Secretary of Agriculture Javier Usabiaga expressed the government's cold-blooded attitude toward campesinos: "It would be better if they'd find something else to do...those who don't understand this, don't want to understand. We are trying to get across a basic point to grain producers and all producers: you make yourselves efficient within the international parameters or you look for something else."
The Debt Bail-out Trap

Edgar Gabriel Hernandez was from a family of corn farmers in Labor, San Luis Potosí. Edgar, 17 years old, worked in a maquiladora. He wanted to save money to build a house for when he got married, but since he earned only $6/day that was impossible. He died in the tractor- trailer on May 14 together with 21-year-old Juan Carlos Castillo Laredo, who was from a nearby area, the county of Cardenas, San Luis Potosí. Eight others from Cardenas were in that same trailer but fortunately did not die. In all there were 15 people from San Luis Potosí in that truck, four of whom died.

Under NAFTA, tariffs (import taxes) on corn imported into Mexico are not supposed to be lifted until 2007. But already in 1996, Mexico imported close to 6 million tons of corn from the U.S.--meaning certain bankruptcy for millions of Mexico's corn farmers.

With NAFTA, the Mexican government received a small advantage in the export of fruits and vegetables to Canada and the U.S. and some other concessions for corporations that export from Mexico. This was said to give the Mexican economy "comparative advantage." But in return, the corn and basic grain sectors of the Mexican economy were sacrificed.

When the value of the peso suddenly dropped in 1995, the Mexican economy was thrown into severe crisis. When the peso crisis threatened to send destabilizing tremors around the world, the Clinton administration "bailed out" Mexico with a $100 billion loan. One of the conditions of this loan was that Mexico had to import $1 billion worth of corn from the U.S. that year. Between 1995 and 1996 Mexico's corn imports rose 120%.

Among other onerous provisions of the "bail-out" were: Mexico's oil revenues would be deposited directly into the U.S. Treasury bank if Mexico defaulted on loan payments; the privatization of the national university (the government's attempt to carry this out failed because of a fierce strike by students); and the privatization of the electrical system (which is not yet complete). The "bail- out" loan itself was just transferred from one U.S. bank to another and was used to pay Mexico's interest payments to U.S. banks.
Disappearing Agricultural Jobs

Jose Luis Ramirez first went to the U.S. when he was 18 and found a job in a brick factory in Tennessee. He came home to visit his family, and found work in El Nanche Colorado, Guerrero, in southern Mexico. A large river runs through the fertile land. Giant export companies like Chiquita rent land cheaply from the campesinos, and they have built up huge mango and cantaloupe plantations. Campesinos like Jose Luis Ramirez then are forced to become contract workers--peones--in these plantations, sometimes on their own land. Campesinos come from far away to work in the plantations, getting up at 3 a.m. to ride down the mountain in the back of a pickup.

At age 20, Jose Luis Ramirez decided he needed to go back across the border, and saved the $1500 it cost to make the journey. He ended up among those losing their lives in the trailer in Texas. Fructuoso Ramirez explained what drove his son to leave for El Norte again: "Yes, we have work. But what can you do with 63 pesos (about $6) a day? And you have to slave from 7 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon. If you just buy a chicken the money is all gone. That's all this government has given us. You can't live off of what you earn... The life of a peon is worth nothing."

On January 1 of this year, a provision written into NAFTA went into effect, eliminating all tariffs on all agricultural products except for corn, beans, and powdered milk. The effects of this measure are rippling through the economy. The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture estimates that due to the elimination of these tariffs, the number of poor people in Mexico (already estimated to be 75% of the population, with 43% living on less than $2/day) will increase by 8 million this year.

U.S. agricultural products, subsidized by the government, are undercutting small farmers worldwide. In Mexico the agricultural subsidies go mainly to the U.S. agribusiness corporations exporting from Mexican soil.

There is a severe shortage of jobs in Mexico. Estimates are that at least 3 million agricultural jobs in Mexico will disappear this year. At the same time that NAFTA is ruining any possibility for a decent life in the Mexican countryside, Mexico's industry is also being hit hard. The maquiladora sector only contributes low-paying jobs with slave-like conditions to the economy. And because of the recession in the U.S. economy, millions of these maquiladora jobs have left Mexico--as capitalist investors move production to countries where wages are even lower and workers can be exploited even more deeply.

In the face of anti-NAFTA protests, the Mexican government refuses to try to renegotiate the treaty. In one protest last December, campesinos burst into the House of Representatives (Camara de Diputados) on horseback, sending the politicians scrambling to hide under their desks in fear. Many of the anti- NAFTA actions have been led by sections of well-off campesinos who once viewed NAFTA as an "opportunity" for them.

Mexican President Fox extols the virtues of NAFTA because Mexico now exports more to the U.S. than any other Latin American nation: "We sell $30 billion more to the U.S. than they sell to us...[NAFTA] is good business for Mexico." But as one study explained, the reality is that Mexico's high level of exports merely reflects the transfers from subsidiaries of multinational corporations located in Mexico to others located in the U.S. Such exports do not stimulate the Mexican economy, because they have few linkages with the overall Mexican economy. As the study noted, "These exports...have not become a motor for the rest of the economy; instead they are becoming an island that has less and less links with the rest of the economy."

The most successful "Mexican" agricultural export is tequila. The main tequila producer is Seagrams, which utilizes Mexican labor to grow and harvest agave plants to make tequila for export. Mexican agave farmers have been driven out of business because Seagrams and other producers like Cuervo and Bacardi offer prices that don't even cover the cost of production. When the farmers protested, they were attacked and thrown in jail.
Landless in Guanajuato

The village of Pozos, Guanajuato, lost three men in that same tractor- trailer. Pozos is a pueblo of 2,000 residents located 10 miles north of the industrial town of Celaya in central Mexico.

Two brothers, Serafin and Roberto Rivera, died together in the truck. Serafin had worked for two years in Florida picking tomatoes. Money he sent home went into the building of a new brick room in his house. He didn't want to go back to Florida. But the money also paid for school for his son and medical treatment for his daughter. This time he took his brother Roberto with him. Roberto wanted to put a roof on his house and repay debts from building it. His wife Cecilia was several months pregnant at the time of his death, and they had a 3-year-old son, Juan.

Serafin and Roberto's neighbor, Hector Ramirez, had a small store in the first floor of his house. The family had accumulated a lot of debts, so Hector was headed to Florida with Roberto and Serafin to pick tomatoes. His wife Laura said that now she will have to pull her three daughters, aged 10 to 13, out of school and put them to work. "If we don't have an education, there's nothing left for us but field work. But what choice do I have? We worked very hard to have our little house and our little truck. Now we have to sell everything. What else is left us?" Laura's father is planning to try his luck in El Norte to help support his daughter and her family.

When Mexico used to produce its own food, Guanajuato was part of the area known as "Mexico's breadbasket." Now, the people of Pozos have no land, and most work as day laborers in the agribusiness fields or digging wells in the area.

The factory jobs in Celaya require secondary school education, and most people in Pozos can only finish primary school. The people in the county of Juventino Rosas, where Pozos is located, lost their land 20 years ago to a landlord who formed a large plantation. Most of the men in the area immigrate to the U.S. for work. And it is said that the most common way for the men of Pozos to reach El Norte is to climb into a tractor-trailer truck.

Guanajuato is the home state of President Fox. During his presidential campaign, Fox pointed to the state as an "example" for the nation. But in reality, of the 4 million inhabitants of the state, 3.5 million live in poverty. Guanajuato has one of the highest ratios of immigrants in the nation. These immigrants sent back home $1 billion in 2002--the equivalent of half of the state budget. Out of the 31 states in Mexico, Guanajuato is rated number 28 in social programs like health care, housing, and schooling. So the families are dependent on money sent back from relatives working in the U.S. And the three men from Pozos died trying to provide these basic things for their families.
From the Ruined Countryside to Urban Shantytowns

The death of Jose Antonio Villaseñor and his 5-year-old son, Marco Antonio, in the locked trailer in Texas hinted at the disquieting levels of desperation among Mexico's urban poor that even the U.S. press could not quite ignore. Jose Antonio was a taxi driver in Mexico City. The family moved to the city from the state of Hidalgo, one of the areas where the agricultural crisis is sharpest.

Mexico City is the largest city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is surrounded by concentric circles of urban slums that lack basic services like running water and sewage removal. One such community is Naucalpan, where Jose Antonio lived.

Studies predict that, with current growth patterns under the "development" plans for the country, Mexico City's population will grow to 50 million by the year 2030. Jose Antonio must have felt that the future for him and his son was like a dark tunnel, with only one way out--El Norte.

In the space of 40 years, Mexico has gone from having a majority rural population to a majority urban population. At present 75 million people, or 75% of the population, live in urban areas.

Recent economic analyses have warned that because the Mexican economy is so directly tied to the U.S. economy, which continues to slide downward, more and more jobs will be lost. The part of the Mexican economy where jobs are growing is the informal economy in the cities. Well over half of the urban population work in "changarros"--little mom-and-pop businesses, like selling tamales on the street. As the unemployment situation has become increasingly desperate, Fox has been giving upbeat pep talks to promote "changarros" as the road to "progress."

link

And yes, this is a labor issue and I did link the rwor -sue me, they know labor and indigenous rights, and I think this is a great view of what is going on down south without all the right-wing spin.



please you sound like the poster child for Socialists R Us.
 

Steeplerot

Lifer
Mar 29, 2004
13,051
6
81
Originally posted by: daniel49


please you sound like the poster child for Socialists R Us.

Regardless of the source it is a very informative article for further reading, I spent 20 minutes factchecking the cities and public officals quotes used. (and burned out googles translator) I warn people if I see bias, just swap the word imperialism for "US economic policy" and you won't burn your little neocon eyes.
Labor issues are a specialty for these guys, if you don't like the source, don't read it, (you are missing out though) I did provide a great Time Magazine link in the OP.
BTW that is not a socialist website. ;)
 

tweaker2

Lifer
Aug 5, 2000
14,475
6,896
136
big business and the bush administration want the situation to remain the way it is because they like things just the way they are. it fits quite neatly into their overall agenda of acquiring increased profits two ways:

1. big business can import cheap labor that cannot be legally orgainized by labor unions.
2. by taking advantage of this type of cheap labor big business actually weakens workers unions already established in the US.

i kind'a feel that any new policies endorsed by the bush administration concerning the status of immigrants looking for low paying jobs in the US will have features that will attempt to keep these workers from organizing (for as long as possible anyway).

unions, after all, are one of the essential vehicles that was utilized by the workers of this country to lift many poor immigrants out of poverty and into the middle class.

IIRC, one of the main reasons given against implementing NAFTA was that it was a ujnion-busting tactic by big business. from the looks of things as they are now, that idea seems to have merit.
 

Steeplerot

Lifer
Mar 29, 2004
13,051
6
81
Originally posted by: tweaker2
big business and the bush administration want the situation to remain the way it is because they like things just the way they are. it fits quite neatly into their overall agenda of acquiring increased profits two ways:

1. big business can import cheap labor that cannot be legally orgainized by labor unions.
2. by taking advantage of this type of cheap labor big business actually weakens workers unions already established in the US.

i kind'a feel that any new policies endorsed by the bush administration concerning the status of immigrants looking for low paying jobs in the US will have features that will attempt to keep these workers from organizing (for as long as possible anyway).

unions, after all, are one of the essential vehicles that was utilized by the workers of this country to lift many poor immigrants out of poverty and into the middle class.

IIRC, one of the main reasons given against implementing NAFTA was that it was a ujnion-busting tactic by big business. from the looks of things as they are now, that idea seems to have merit.

Your are right on target, I am sure NAFTA broke Cesar Chavez's heart, he died a year after bush sr. signed it, who knows?

link
Chavez used to say that the UFW was born the day the Bracero program was abolished in 1964. The Bracero program was, in effect, modern slave labor. Workers had no rights, except the right to be exploited and shipped back home. In fact, many (of those still alive) are owed money withheld from their paychecks from the 1940s-1960s.

A generation later, and now, incredulously, there's a push for another bracero program, albeit with a different name. So desperate is the situation regarding the border that this new "guest worker" program is being touted as a solution.

If Chavez were alive, he would say this legalized indentured labor is the problem, not the solution. The move to legally codify a category of humans with fewer rights and less pay is contrary to the march of history. It's a return to 19th century coolie labor - contract them cheaply (leave their families behind), subject them to inhumane working conditions, then ship them home. If they escape, sic the immigration officials on them. And if they have not given the patron any trouble (union organizing), they can return. This is seen as an alternative to dying in the desert and continuing to work in the shadows. Unless contested, this may become the future model labor for the United States.

Perhaps a better alternative and interim solution can be found in Europe. There, workers from any of the 25 nations that make up the European Community are legally entitled to work in each other's nations. In North America - as a result of NAFTA - jingoistic politicians treat human beings not as workers, but as criminals. Under this tri-national agreement, goods and capital generally flow freely, but not human beings.

To conveniently assuage America's fears, hard-working migrants are now conflated with terrorists, thus the push to further militarize the border. Some will not be happy until there's an impregnable 2,000-mile wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, patrolled by trigger-happy vigilantes.

The merchants of fear have done a great disservice to humanity by getting people to see the issue of migration within the context of criminality or "the war on terrorism," rather than as part of a global economic phenomenon
- one that could easily be resolved.

If Chavez taught us anything, it was to appreciate the men and women who provide us our daily sustenance. This begins by accepting and treating all workers as full human beings.




We cannot have it both ways, if goods and capitol flow freely across the border then labor must also. Either accept that NAFTA kills our border and allow citizenship from north and south or just scrap it altogether for the old fashioned way if people are so hung up on national sovereignty vs, global free markets.
 

techs

Lifer
Sep 26, 2000
28,561
4
0
I thought I would jump in after reading this thread.
NAFTA "failed" because of China. Many jobs that went to Mexico were outsourced from there to China. Seems that corporations found even Mexican wages and human rights and environmental law to much when compared to China.
Mexico has made a small comeback by concentrating on manufacturing things that either need to get to market as soon as possible or things where shipping costs from China give Mexico an edge.
All thru South America jobs have left and gone to China. It is not just US jobs that the Chinese are getting.
Which is why the US could lead a HUGE number of countries in an effort to get China to fairly trade its currency, respect workers rights and protect intellectual property rights.
 

blackangst1

Lifer
Feb 23, 2005
22,914
2,359
126
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Originally posted by: charrison
Originally posted by: Steeplerot
Originally posted by: charrison
Nafta has helped mexico, but is still not a cure for their political system which has severe problems. Mexico should be a wealthycountry based on its natural resounes, but it remains a poor country because of its political system.


-That signs deals like NAFTA.



And contrary to what you beleive, nafta has helped both the US and Mexico. Because of NAFTA there are not malls popping up on the the Texas border where Mexicans are spending their money here. For some odd reason, products are cheaper to purcase in the US.



It has helped the rich in mexico and some of the northern part (the parts with low population) and the rich usa you mean, and brought us their poor.


Perhaps they should ask why NAFTA?which took effect 12 years ago amid promises to raise the fortunes of Mexico?s beleaguered workers?hasn?t done more to reduce desperate labor migration over the U.S. border. That illegal flow, about a million migrants a year, is as heavy as ever. (Just ask CNN's Lou Dobbs, who?s broadcasting live from Cancún this week because he?s so aggravated about it.) NAFTA has not been an altogether bad deal for Mexico; it has buoyed the economy and improved opportunities for workers in the more technologically advanced north. But it has only exacerbated their plight in the nation?s south and midsection?states like Oaxaca and Zacatecas that are hemorrhaging workers to California lettuce fields, North Carolina poultry plants and Chicago restaurants.

The big reason, say critics, is that NAFTA all but sold Mexico?s campesinos up the Rio Grande by failing to challenge lavish U.S. and Canadian agricultural subsidies?the kind that all too often shut Third World farmers out of First World markets. Moreover, free trade has also failed to generate enough U.S. and other foreign investment in new industries and small- and medium-size businesses?and, as a result, hasn't created enough new Mexican jobs.Even when new jobs do appear, the nation?s unforgiving low-wage business culture?the dark shame of Mexico's political and economic leaders, which NAFTA was also supposed to reform?makes sure that they still often pay in a day what similar work would pay in an hour in the U.S. Add the recent deluge of dirt-cheap Chinese imports into North America that are taking business previously provided by Mexico, and the urgency for Mexican workers to head north only heightens.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1178497,00.html

Just a few thoughts and comments...

Why is it a bad thing if NAFTA has helped the rich? Is it not the American Dream to be able to accumulate as much wealth as the market will bear? Or do you somehow think it should only be done as long as no one else suffers? Get real. When Sam Walton created WalMart, he KNEW he would put small businesses out of business. Tough luck. That's how our economy is.

Quote: "The big reason, say critics, is that NAFTA all but sold Mexico?s campesinos up the Rio Grande by failing to challenge lavish U.S. and Canadian agricultural subsidies". So, according to this article, it is US Government handouts (read corp welfare) that was to blame for this? So I take it you are against governemnt handouts now? /cheer if so.

Quote: "and, as a result, hasn't created enough new Mexican jobs.Even when new jobs do appear, the nation?s unforgiving low-wage business culture?the dark shame of Mexico's political and economic leaders, which NAFTA was also supposed to reform?makes sure that they still often pay in a day what similar work would pay in an hour in the U.S." I'm sorry, but this way of thinking is just poison. No where in NAFTA was it the intention of the US of A trying to reform the Mexican government. Nor should we. To think our mission is to get the rest of the world on our page as far as economy is concerned is ludicriss. It's a pipe dream and faulty thinking. Also, it's not our job to clean up the corruption of Mexico's government. Which is the REAL reason the people are so poor. It's not our fault, nor should it be our concern. Unless of course we decide to invade and overthrow them LOL.