Abstract

Spectacular Success?

This article discusses the global economic effect of NAFTA in the past ten years since it was enacted. Virtually none of the benefits touted by the treaty's many boosters a decade ago have come into being, while a number of disturbing developments have emerged. A Carnegie Endowment study found that while the accord generated nothing like the number of expected jobs in Mexico, it devastated hundreds of thousands of subsistence farmers there without having much impact on jobs here at home. With America's decision to support China's entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001, China quickly replaced Mexico as the favored destination for multinationals looking for cheap labor. US workers, who would now be forced to bargain for their wages and working conditions against their counterparts in Mexico--who earned a fraction of what they did and lacked health, environmental and legal protections--had provided the electoral base for President Clinton's victory. Bush and Fox were civil at the recent Summit of the Americas in Monterrey, Mexico, about Fox's immigration policy pretenses, with "free trade" issues given less attention. Meanwhile, the expected benefits of NAFTA--that it would improve intra-American relations and reduce Mexican resentment toward the colossus of the North--have been more than offset by the costs of other US actions.