The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is intended to promote free trade among the countries of North America by removing trade barriers, tariffs, quotas, and other such barriers. The agreement is quite extensive and includes many provisions related to such things as plant inspection and even wages. The agreement has been negotiated among Mexico, the United States, and Canada, and it has been much discussed recently in terms of what it will mean for the United States and whether on balance it can be considered a positive or negative move for the U.S. The same questions can be raised with reference to Mexico and to the benefits that might accrue to Mexico if the agreement is passed, and an examination of the benefits that will occur from the Mexican point of view may demonstrate some of the benefits and liabilities from the U.S. point of view as well.
NAFTA is a historic agreement that has not been examined as closely as it should on either side of the border. Mexico conducts as much as 90 percent of her trade with the United States. The premise of the agreement is that free trade should be left exclusively to the free market. In practice, this means giving free rein to those who command the most power and the most wealth. The agreement also covers only things economic, such as financial matters, investment, intellectual property, and commerce as well as dispute resolution, banking, transportation, and services. It does not include other topics--the political, the social, the environmental (at least not directly), the cultural. Castaneda and Heredia (1993), writing for a Mexican magazine, find the agreement to be a bad deal for Mexico because it does not recognize the enormous disparities between Mexico and the United States. Special treatment for Mexico has been removed by the Mexican government because the leadership wants to see Mexico as a country joining the First world and not as a more backward economy need...