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Article

28 Nov 2016

Author:
Felicity Lawrence, The Guardian (UK)

Mexico: North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) has negative impacts for poor Mexicans, according to analyst

 “Trump is right: Nafta is a disaster. But US workers aren’t the big losers”, 18 Nov 2016

…Bullies have a habit of blaming their victims. So the American alt-right has blamed poor Mexicans for stealing US jobs with their cheap labour and illegal immigration, and Donald Trump won votes by promising to rip up Nafta – the North American Free Trade Agreement – which has been so damaging to hard-working families. As with so much about this post-fact era, there is some truth in the argument. The problem is that it has been turned on its head. Nafta was introduced in 1994…By 2004 it had become clear that it was a disaster for many poor Mexicans and was driving them to emigrate. The country saw an overall decline in employment in both agriculture and manufacturing and a rapid increase in inequality. This is where you have to look if you really want to understand the drivers behind the spike in illegal immigration to the US over that decade…When Nafta was signed, around 18 million Mexicans depended on corn production for their livelihoods…In the two years after Nafta, imports of corn from the US doubled…The biggest beneficiaries of the fall in corn prices were the two large processors that dominated the Mexican market. American transnationals and local Mexican elites got richer. The poor got poorer…