The Price of Tortillas
Tortillas, a Mexican staple, are costing more these days, and those who can least afford such an increase are hitting the streets to protest the price hikes. The reason for the price hikes? Let's just say NAFTA turned out to be a mistake for the poor and the laborers of both countries. From Mexico's La Jornada:
The crisis we are experiencing in regard to the rise of tortilla prices that so gravely affects the Mexican population, but more seriously affects the 20 million people who are already food-poor, is yet another manifestation of the asymmetrical and wrong-headed trade relationship between Mexico and the United States. Since the signing of the Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, a great many voices have called attention to the problems that could arise. These include that the Treaty would neither achieve a reduction in migration (the central argument of Salinas de Gotari ) nor would it permit us to overcome our subordinate position in relation to the United States, since in economic terms, Mexico was not on an equal footing with its neighbor. Lamentably, time has proven these voices to be right. For their part, the U.S. visualized quite clearly that a form of domination could be achieved over other countries by achieving crop-growing supremacy. And Mexico entered that game losing food self-sufficiency, with all the grave effects that this has brought.
The irony of the NAFTA results is that Mexico finds itself in a much worse situation than it held prior to signing the free trade agreement.
For the United States to achieve this practically hegemonic position has required foreign workers, and to transform them into a reserve industrial army in their home countries by making it possible for them to migrate [north], which has devastating effects on Mexican farming. The great irony of all this is that we now import food products and export our work force, which favors U.S. competitiveness and leaves us at the mercy of the ups and downs of their economy. [Emphasis added]
It isn't, however, just Mexican laborers who have lost ground. The American labor force has also suffered under the various free trade agreements as their jobs have either been turned over to laborers residing in Asia or to laborers who are brought in from Mexico and Central America. The only ones making out under NAFTA are the mega corporations whose tentacles reach to all parts of the world.
And the result is that the poor in Mexico are hard pressed to buy their tortillas.
The crisis we are experiencing in regard to the rise of tortilla prices that so gravely affects the Mexican population, but more seriously affects the 20 million people who are already food-poor, is yet another manifestation of the asymmetrical and wrong-headed trade relationship between Mexico and the United States. Since the signing of the Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, a great many voices have called attention to the problems that could arise. These include that the Treaty would neither achieve a reduction in migration (the central argument of Salinas de Gotari ) nor would it permit us to overcome our subordinate position in relation to the United States, since in economic terms, Mexico was not on an equal footing with its neighbor. Lamentably, time has proven these voices to be right. For their part, the U.S. visualized quite clearly that a form of domination could be achieved over other countries by achieving crop-growing supremacy. And Mexico entered that game losing food self-sufficiency, with all the grave effects that this has brought.
The irony of the NAFTA results is that Mexico finds itself in a much worse situation than it held prior to signing the free trade agreement.
For the United States to achieve this practically hegemonic position has required foreign workers, and to transform them into a reserve industrial army in their home countries by making it possible for them to migrate [north], which has devastating effects on Mexican farming. The great irony of all this is that we now import food products and export our work force, which favors U.S. competitiveness and leaves us at the mercy of the ups and downs of their economy. [Emphasis added]
It isn't, however, just Mexican laborers who have lost ground. The American labor force has also suffered under the various free trade agreements as their jobs have either been turned over to laborers residing in Asia or to laborers who are brought in from Mexico and Central America. The only ones making out under NAFTA are the mega corporations whose tentacles reach to all parts of the world.
And the result is that the poor in Mexico are hard pressed to buy their tortillas.
Labels: Free Trade, NAFTA
posted by Diane at 10:45 AM
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