NAFTA and Mexico

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Mexico’s economy is undergoing a stunning transformation. Seven years after the launch of the North American Free Trade Agreement, it is fast becoming an industrial power. Free trade with the U.S. and Canada is turning the country from a mere assembler of cheap, low-quality goods into a reliable exporter of sophisticated products from auto breaks to laptops computers. Although Mexico has seen economic growth lately, it still faces tremendous problems in the aftermath of the 1995 recession and the revolution that took place in the Chiapas which still wages on today. The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects that NAFTA has had on the economy and it’s people during the implementation of NAFTA and in what NAFTA will bring in the future.
The North American Free Trade Agreement was designed to open borders and promote free trade between three countries: Canada, the United States and Mexico. Signed in 1992, ratified by the U.S. Congress in November 1993 and implemented January 1, 1994, NAFTA reduced some tariffs immediately while others are scheduled to fall to zero over a 15-year period. NAFTA follows the prescription of liberalization- including the deregulation of government restrictions to allow increased trade, direct foreign investment, and foreign ownership of businesses.
On January 1, 1994, a Mexico still sleepy from New Year’s celebrations awoke to discover a passionate new revolution sweeping across the state of Chiapas. The Zapatistas, a small, yet powerfully forceful group of indigenous people, exhausted from centuries of oppression, poverty and corruption, rose up to end this societal injustice, and most specifically, to battle the new tyrant that would be born that very day: The North American Free Trade Agreement. This revolt was viewed by the indigenous population of Chiapas as an essential act to stop the debilitating cycle of injustice and to prevent future harm to the Mexican people by opposing NAFTA. “The Zapatistas have pulled back the curtain that covered up the other Mexico. It is not the Mexico of eager entrepreneurs lined up to open Pizza Hut franchises or consumers eager to shop at Wal-Mart, but rather the Mexico of malnourished children, illiteracy, landlessness, poor roads, lack of health clinics, and life as a permanent struggle.” (Quoted in Russell, p. 1)
NAFTA was ...

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...nmental Issues Under the NAFTA. Canadian – American Committee. Toronto: 1993.

Marinez, Elizabeth and Arnoldo Garica. (No Date). What is “Neo Liberalism”? [Online]. Avaible: http://www.corpwatch.org/trac/corner/glob/neolib.html (June 27-29, 1997). NAFTA’s Failure to Deliver [Online].
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http://www/coha.org/pressr/naftapr/html

Nelan, Bruce W. (April 4, 1994). Days of Trauma and Fear [Online].
Available:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/archieves/1994/940404/940404.mexico.html

Perlo, Vicotr. (March 4, 1995). The Rape of Mexico [Online].
Available:
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/46/031.html

“The President, the peso, the market and those Indians.” The Economist 24 Dec 1994: 43.

Russell, Philip. The Chiapas Rebellion. Mexico Resource Center. Austin: 1995

Shadows of Tender Fury: The Letters and Communiques of Subcomandante Marcos and the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. Monthy Review Press. New York: 1995

Wise, Carol. “The Post-NAFTA Political Economy.” Mexico and the Western Hemisphere. Pennsylvania State University Press: September 1998.

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