In my last blog I talked about the issue of immigration across the EU trade zone, from Romania and Bulgaria to the UK, and how it has become a divisive issue – with much of the native British population wrongly blaming immigrants for their poor economic situation. Today I want to stick to the same theme, but shift to a different continent – specifically, North America, where this month marks the twentieth anniversary of the signing of NAFTA.
NAFTA – or the North American Free Trade Agreement – was signed by the Clinton administration despite a lot of opposition from common people and some politicians in all three of the countries it affects, Canada, Mexico, and the US. The aim was to a create a free trade zone across North America, similar to the European Union itself. This, it was argued, would make the continent more competitive on the world market, while also providing cheaper goods to consumers in Canada and the US and helping Mexico catch up with its neighbours in terms of development and gross domestic product. Everyone would be a winner.
In reality, rather than bringing prosperity to all, NAFTA has worked to take money away from the poor and put it into the pockets of the rich, all while exacerbating a number of social and economic problems in America.
To begin with, many well-paid manufacturing jobs in the US have migrated to Mexico, where labour is considerably cheaper. The US-Mexico border regions have seen massive growth of 'maquiladoras' – factories where goods are produced for tariff-free export to the US. These factories often have sweatshop conditions, and workers are paid a pittance. Meanwhile, American cities that formerly relied on manufacturing have become hollowed-out shells – their inner city and downtown districts blighted by unemployment and urban decay, with buildings crumbling and no remaining tax base to fix the deeply entrenched problems.
At the same time as previously American jobs have travelled south, many Mexicans have begun to move north in search of a better life. Many of them are looking only to escape the poverty of Mexico (including those low-paid sweatshop jobs in the maquiladoras) and make a better life for themselves and their families. However, some of them have less positive motives, and drug smuggling has become a major problem. Of course, those drugs are being supplied to meet an increasing demand from...the same desperate, unemployed, hopeless people who live in the depressed American inner cities that were destroyed by NAFTA.
Despite the fact that many of the problems of urban decay, drugs, and immigration in the US can be traced to the desire of the corporations and their political allies to implement NAFTA and gain access to cheap Mexican labour, the average American is encouraged by the media and politicians to blame the poor Mexicans who cross the border to find work. No matter what their intentions – and the vast majority of them are honest, decent people – they are accused of drug smuggling, stealing jobs, and bleeding social security dry. In actual fact, as the story of NAFTA shows us, it is the rich who are bleeding the poor dry, through their thirst for profits and their disregard for the jobs and livelihoods of their fellow citizens.
NAFTA, Clinton administration, European Union, manufacturing jobs, poor economic situation, NRGLab
