The Affects of NAFTA on the Mexican worker/farmer

For as long as its existence as a nation, the United States has always been advanced, both economically and technologically. It was here that the first telephone rang, the first light bulb gave light, and here where planes first left the ground. As time moves on, and Americans progress, it would makes sense that jobs would as well. The U.S. farmer became the industry worker, who moved up to business man, who will continue to strive for advancements. Somehow, over time, our ideas of what a working man is composed of has changed, and somehow the hard working American man began to be looked down upon. As educational advancements become more conceivable for many Americans, citizens of America are sill in need of jobs, whether agricultural, industrial, or other. Unfortunately for many of these Americans, jobs in the workforce (especially Industrial), have become scarce. This is because some Americans have become “smarter” and discovered how using people less fortunate than themselves can work to their advantage. So they began coming up with ways to use workers from countries with less developed economies (such as Mexico) to their advantage- because they have become accustomed to having what they want, at the cheapest price available. To help those in favor of sending the American man’s job out of the country, businessmen and government officials created an easy way to transport goods in and out of America: The North American Free Trade Agreement. Thanks to NAFTA, U.S. factory jobs have been taken across the border and handed to Mexican men, women, and children; all of whom work for no set minimum wage. Thanks to NAFTA, Mexican farmers are going out of business because Mexicans can now import their food from huge American corporations with no tax. The overall affect: NAFTA has been harmful to the workers and farmers of Mexico.
Ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1994, NAFTA, “Was designed to remove barriers and increase trade among the United States, Canada, and Mexico… [which would] promote free trade between the United States and other nations,” (ABC-CLIO). Critics of this agreement saw its creation with both favors and flaws. With globalization becoming more and more popular, economist and national leaders liked the idea of lower trade tariffs and barriers. Gregory Mankiw, a professor of economics, took part in pushing NAFTA through to the senate. On the subject, Mankiw said, “Outsourcing is a new way of doing International Trade…I think outsourcing is a growing phenomenon, but it’s something that we should realize is probably a plus for the economy in the long run”. This bold statement made by Mankiw leads to one obvious question: How long is “the long run”? It has been thirteen years since NAFTA came into effect, and we don’t even seem close to reaching the “long run”.
Exploitation of cheap labor in Mexico has been an ongoing reality, and with extinct tariffs, the practice is becoming quite common. In fact, one of the main reason people opposed the validity of NAFTA was because they said, “the pact would result only in a massive transfer of U.S. and Canadian jobs to lower-paid Mexican workers” (Grolier). It’s true that NAFTA created many more jobs for the Mexican worker, but was this really to his or her advantage? Working for no set minimum wage, but only a price that would never be allowed in the United States, Mexican workers work in sweat shops for hours at a time, hoping the work they put in will pay off enough to feed their family. Personally, the idea of feeding impoverished families is great, but at what cost are these families being fed, and has having new jobs given them that heads up? The answer is no. A study conducted by the Labor University of Mexico, concluded that the purchasing power of Mexican citizens has been declining ever since 1994, the year that NAFTA was put into effect. NAFTA not only significantly decreased their purchasing power, but also contributed to an increase of unemployment in agriculture and small businesses because those fields could not compete with U.S. imports (American Decades). This means that not only has NAFTA shifted the United States’ economy, but also the Mexican economy, and none for the better. While companies can afford more products, this isn’t necessarily a good thing. It just confirms that American companies are cashing in on the hard manual labor of poor factory workers, who slave away and ridiculously low prices. And why do they get to slave away? Because companies know that they can get away with it, because there is no minimum wage enforcement in Mexico as there is in the U.S.