Economic & Political Change in Mexico

The last decade and a half has been a period of dramatic economic and political change in Mexico. On the economic level, the decade of the 1990s began with a severe debt crisis that threatened Mexico's economy with a real possibility of bankruptcy and economic chaos. The debt emergency was relieved, and Mexico went on to enter into the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with the United States and Canada. After decades in which the Mexican economy was largely cut off and insulated from the world, Mexico's market was opened up to broad competition, while Mexican exporters correspondingly gained far freer access to one of the world's largest markets.

During this same period, Mexico has undergone an equally dramatic political transformation. For decades the Mexican political system was as closed as its economic structure, with de facto one-party rule by the Party of the Institutional Revolution, or PRI. The President of Mexico was restricted to a single six-year term, but effectively handpicked his successor. This did not prevent the successor from sharply reversing his predecessor's policies, as in fact was often the case, but the vast patronage structure of the ruling party went on unchanged.

By the late 1980s, however, cracks were appearing in the solidity of this structure; the PRI won the 1988 election only by overt fraud. In 2000, Mexico passed a milestone when an opposition party won the presidential election, and Vicente Fox became the first non

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ennial underemployment, and with labor relations and working conditions in the export-oriented maquiladora factories. Underlying all of these is the ever-delicate question of Mexican sovereignty and control of its own economic destiny. These questions were and are not primarily specific to NAFTA. However, as in the United States, NAFTA provides a convenient symbol for broader concerns. In its primary immediate objective of promoting increased trade between Mexico and the United States through reduction of impediments to trade, NAFTA has been strikingly successful. Between 1993 and 2000, Mexico-US trade volume grew more than threefold, from $81.5 billion in 1993 to $247.2 billion in 2000. In 2001, however, trade volume dropped slightly to $232.9 billion, about 2 percent (Storr 3). This retreat can undoubtedly be attributed to the recession in the US economy. A breakdown of trade volume by quarter is not available, but the reversal after dramatic growth in the prior years is unlikely to have been due solely to the effects of the 9/11 terror attack in the United States. From the Mexican perspective, a significant sore point in the NAFTA relationship has been pressure from US labor interests to restrict the ability of Mex

Category: Foreign - E