Defenders of NAFTA might not want to hear a Mexican farmer's point of view on the subject.

[Zalatix]

http://articles.cnn.com/2008-02-01/world/mexico.farmers_1_mexican-officials-mexican-government-nafta?_s=PM:WORLD

Mexican farmers protest NAFTA

February 01, 2008|From Harris Whitbeck CNN

Hundreds of thousands of farmers clogged central Mexico City Thursday with their slow-moving tractors, protesting the entry of cheap imported corn from the United States and Canada.

On January 1 Mexico repealed all tariffs on corn imported from north of the border as part of a 14-year phaseout under the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA.

The farmers want the government to renegotiate the 1994 free trade agreement, which removed most trade barriers among Mexico, Canada, and the United States, saying livelihoods are at stake.

"NAFTA is very bad, very bad for Mexican consumers and for Mexican producers," said Victor Quintana, head of Democratic Farmers Front, which organized the protest.

The farmers complain that U.S. and Canadian grains are heavily subsidized and therefore undermine Mexican products.

http://prospectjournal.ucsd.edu/index.php/2010/04/nafta-and-u-s-corn-subsidies-explaining-the-displacement-of-mexicos-corn-farmers/

NAFTA AND U.S. CORN SUBSIDIES: EXPLAINING THE DISPLACEMENT OF MEXICO’S CORN FARMERS

The paper’s underlying hypothesis is that American corn subsidies, which led to the flooding of Mexican markets with American corn following the signing of NAFTA, is the primary factor responsible for the post-1994 internal displacement of rural farmers in Mexico. The trade agreement effectively eliminated all trade barriers and placed Mexico’s domestically produced corn in direct competition with highly subsidized corn imported from the United States. Consequently, Mexican corn farmers, who comprise the majority of the country’s agricultural sector, experienced drastic declines in the domestic price of their product and thus faced increasing difficulties to attain a sustainable living. Hence, we observe high levels of migration into Mexico’s cities in the latter half of the 1990’s, and the beginning of the 21st century, as these displaced farmers abandoned their previous livelihood in search of employment.

So not only did foreign outsourcing destroy millions of American manufacturing jobs, it also devastated Mexico's farmers.

Tell us again how free trade helped?

[lib2DaBone]

1. NAFTA put Mexican farmers out of business.. forcing them to look for jobs in the U.S.

Then.. when farmers are forced to come to the U.S. to find work.. the Republicans complain about illegal immigration?

Conservatives have to be the most stupid people on the face of the earth.

[appal_jack]

16. "The large print giveth..."

"The large print giveth, and the small print taketh away,
Step right up..."

Tom waits happened to be singing this on my radio just as I clicked on this thread.

Both Republicans and DLC Democrats sure did pitch the "large print" about "free trade" during the 1980's & 1990's. I was part of the opposition at conferences (The International Forum on Globalization, etc.) and in the streets. We were ignored by the ptb.

-app

[Romulox]

2. Wouldn't it be *convenient* if these displaced workers could be used to decimate the middle class

here in the United States? Or at least a "happy accident"!

[Xipe Totec]

3. There are other cash crops that these Mexican farmers can turn to

Like cannabis, cocaine, and poppy....







And we wonder what is fueling the drug trade...

[polly7]

4. Big kick. Thank you for this thread. n/t.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

5. A disaster.

I'll never forgive Clinton for this. It was one of the biggest "fuck yous" to American labor this country has ever seen.

[Zalatix]

6. Plus it's an unintentional "fuck you" to Mexican farmers.

[Elwood P Dowd]

10. Clinton never should have gone along with the disaster called NAFTA, but he didn't negotiate

the deal. That was done by H.W. Bush and his USTR Carla Hills. Bush signed the deal in December, 1992 and left it for Clinton and the 1993 Congress. Clinton wasn't the only Dem to stab working Americans in the back. Bradley, Richardson, Foley, Matsui, and a few others did it also.

[polly7]

7. NAFTA Is Starving Mexico

http://www.fpif.org/articles/nafta_is_starving_mexico

Since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) became the law of the land, millions of Mexicans have joined the ranks of the hungry. Malnutrition is highest among the country’s farm families, who used to produce enough food to feed the nation.

As the blood-spattered violence of the drug war takes over the headlines, many Mexican men, women, and children confront the slow and silent violence of starvation. The latest reports show that the number of people living in “food poverty” (the inability to purchase the basic food basket) rose from 18 million in 2008 to 20 million by late 2010.

About one-fifth of Mexican children currently suffer from malnutrition. An innovative measurement applied by the National Institute for Nutrition registers a daily count of 728,909 malnourished children under five for October 18, 2011. Government statistics report that 25 percent of the population does not have access to basic food.

Since the 2008 food crisis, there has been a three percent rise in the population without adequate access to food. The number of children with malnutrition is 400,000 kids above the goal for this year. Newborns show the highest indices of malnutrition, indicating that the tragedy begins with maternal health.

[a la izquierda]

8. Thanks for posting.

I tell my students every semester that NAFTA basically prevented Mexican farmers from doing the very thing they'd been doing for like 5000 years.

And we wonder why we have an "immigration problem."

[MadHound]

9. Oh that's just the beginning of the damage NAFTA did to Mexico

NAFTA turned the border region into an ecological disaster, killed farming, and though it produced a temporary boost in manufacturing, that soon ebbed as multi-nationals left for even cheaper labor in Asia.

[Perceval]

11. Surprising

I must say I'm surprised: while I don't like NAFTA, I assumed the immigration problem would be worse without it, because people in Mexico wouldn't be employed by the companies which migrated down there. I'm so used to thinking of the United States as an importer of goods, not an exporter. The corn subsidies seem like a loser all around, except for keeping food prices low. That was their original intent, from what I understand, but it appears the negative and unintended consequences (including the health problems from the ubiquity of corn syrup) are outstripping that plus by an increasingly large margin.

[Recursion]

12. NAFTA was a complete giveaway to American ag

and a big part of the reason that American ag runs such a big trade surplus ($60 billion or so annually). Though China has a lot to do with that too: your shoes were once the skin of a cow from Montana, and were sent to China to be made into shoes.

[gratuitous]

13. Now, now, let's give it a little time, shall we?

Besides, we're gonna get those "side" agreements on labor and the environment, oh, just any minute now! Then you'll see the economic POWER of NAFTA unleashed. Swimming pools and golf courses for everyone! Whooppeeeeee!!!

[bvar22]

14. Ross was RIGHT!

&feature=player_embedded

....and EVERYBODY on that stage with him KNEW it.

His prediction of manufacturing jobs returning to America when wages and benefits fell to 3rd World NO UNION status
was also Spot On.

[font color=firebrick size=3] If you Work for a Living, do NOT trust any politician who expresses a belief in
"Free Trade", "Free Markets", or a Giant "Invisible Hand".
None of those things exist,
and that politician is NOT your friend.

[font size=5 color=green]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/center]

[Uncle Joe]

15. Perot was a free trade monopolist starts at about the 5:00 minute mark.

[bvar22]

17. ..and that somehow invalidates his 1992 predictions on NAFTA and deregulated International Trade?

As far as I'm concerned, his success as a ruthless capitalist only lends MORE credibility to his predictions.
I didn't say I wanted him for president,
only that he was one of the very few willing to tell the truth.


You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
[font size=5 color=green]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------[/center]

[Uncle Joe]

19. What Perot was speaking of was already happening.

Jobs were already being exported, in large part because the rest of the industrialized world had rebuilt after the post WWII quarter century period of devastation, when they largely didn't have any competitive industry.

The European Union was forming as well.

This increased competition drove American manufacturers to seek cheaper labor sources abroad.

When NAFTA came along the migration was already happening but that had more to do with the U.S. coming back to earth in relation to its' total economic domination of the globe coming to an end.

[Romulox]

20. Mexico and Canada were devastated during WWII? Err.....

Absolute rubbish! Just nonsense.

[Uncle Joe]

23. I agree your post is nonsense as I never said or implied that Canada or Mexico were devastated Errr..

Whatever Err... means?

Jobs were already being exported, in large part because the rest of the industrialized world had rebuilt after the post WWII quarter century period of devastation, when they largely didn't have any competitive industry.

If you're trying to suggest that much of the Industrialized World wasn't bombed to hell from World War II, while the U.S. was left relatively unscathed, then pass that bong over here and quit bogarting, that must be some good shit.

[Romulox]

27. We're talking about NAFTA, a trade pact between the US, Mexico, Canada. It went into effect in 1994.

WWII devastation in Europe, Japan is utterly irrelevant to this pact with Mexico and Canada, not to mention 50 years out of date.

Your arguments are terrible. Just awful.

[Uncle Joe]

28. We're talking about the increased need for U.S. industries to find cheap labor as

world wide industrial competition intensified with the rebuilding of the decimated nations of Europe, and to some degree Japan.

Furthermore, you're out of date that migration of U.S. industry seeking cheap labor first in the South and then abroad started long before NAFTA.

[Romulox]

29. There was no "increased need" for cheap labor. You're advocating transfers from workers to corps.

That's all.

[Uncle Joe]

31. Only if you believe U.S. industry shouldn't remain competitive on the world stage.

We do have two great oceans on each side, but the world is smaller and we can't remain isolated, we need other nations good and services just as they need ours.

[Romulox]

21. Wow. This was a HUGE reason Gore lost in 2000, imo. A knife in the back to workers. nt

[Uncle Joe]

22. #1. Gore didn't lose in 2000.

#2 Clinton won in 1996 years after NAFTA was signed by him but he didn't need to run for election again after impeachment.

#3. The primary reason 2000 was close enough for Bush to steal is because of

A. The Lewinsky Scandal, impeachment and primarily the lie Clinton told directly to the American People, Gore would've been better off had Clinton told the truth or just kept his mouth shut.

B. The corporate media's near two year war of slander and libel waged against Gore beginning weeks after the impeachment of Clinton was the knife in the back to the people. Basically the corporate media transferred the lack of integrity sins from the President to the Vice-President, "I did not have sexual relations with that woman seamlessly morphed in to "Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet," etc. etc.

The corporate media waged this war of slander and libel precisely because Gore was the preeminent political champion for opening the Internet to the people. The corporate media came to view the growing Internet as a threat to their business model of one way, top down information distribution, dissemination and they saw a loss of wealth, power and influence as the American Peoples' First Amendment powers were magnified.

[Romulox]

26. Gore betrayed workers, and CONTINUES to advocate for outsourcing (via Fisker) to this day.

Your bizarre Internet conspiracy theory isn't worth comment.

Car Company Gets U.S. Loan, Builds Cars In Finland

Vice President Joseph Biden heralded the Energy Department's $529 million loan to the start-up electric car company called Fisker as a bright new path to thousands of American manufacturing jobs. But two years after the loan was announced, the company's manufacturing jobs are still limited to the assembly of the flashy electric Fisker Karma sports car in Finland.

"There was no contract manufacturer in the U.S. that could actually produce our vehicle," the car company's founder and namesake told ABC News. "They don't exist here."

...

The loan to Fisker is part of a $1 billion bet the Energy Department has made in two politically connected California-based electric carmakers producing sporty -- and pricey -- cutting-edge autos. Fisker Automotive, backed by a powerhouse venture capital firm whose partners include former Vice President Al Gore, predicts it will eventually be churning out tens of thousands of electric sports sedans at the shuttered GM factory it bought in Delaware. And Tesla Motors, whose prime backers include PayPal mogul Elon Musk and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, says it will do the same in a massive facility tooling up in Silicon Valley.

[Uncle Joe]

30. That conspiracy theory of mine is supported by logic, common sense, human nature and

and actual record/behavior of the corporate media toward Gore beginning in March of 99.

The traditional corporate media could no more embrace Gore than the Pony Express appreciated the wireless telegraph or blacksmiths' love for the auto industry.

[jwirr]

18. And this is happening around the world - we are undercutting local businesses of all kinds and then

wonder why they hate us? Corporations and their owners are totally ignorant of what is needed to build up a real democracy that helps everyone - you know like the one FDR built.

[Zalatix]

25. Case in point, if I recall correctly: Monsato in India

[jwirr]

32. Exactly. Also in Africa - destroying local farmers.

[Marr]

24. Who was arguing in your last thread about how tariffs and subsidies

don't protect markets? Hmm... I'd sure love to hear more of their 'wisdom' here.