The 1994 NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) agreement specified it would stimulate business between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Undoubtedly, there have been enormous gains for the corporate sector overtaking small businesses and farms. In the area of agriculture, small farmers have suffered greatly in all three countries. Most have lost jobs and/or gone out of business.
The U.S. sets subsidies so high for agriculture that only large corporate farms can take advantage. Small U.S. farmers do not qualify for the subsidies, and the loss of the farm to a large corporation is imminent. It is easy to understand how small farmers have not fared well under the NAFTA agreement. Tim Wise’s research found:
U.S. policies – not just subsidies – have had a significant effect on the competitiveness of U.S. exports, increasing production and lowering prices for crops and agricultural products that compete with Mexican production. For the eight supported commodities analyzed here, U.S. exports increased between 159% and 707% from the early 1990s.
The profits in agriculture are reserved for the large corporate farms. Small farmers in Mexico cannot compete with inexpensive corporate GMO corn and other commodities from the US. Self-sufficient farmers are out of business. It is ironic that Mexico, the birthplace of corn, now has to import cheap GMO corn because the small farmers cannot challenge corporate prices.
NAFTA has been disastrous for workers in Mexico and another cause for emigration to the US. A resident of the State of Michoacán in México, pointed out the following to me in 2018 “Those hills over there (covering a width of three to four miles) used to be fields of corn. About 30 years ago, after that ‘agreement’ with the U.S., they started disappearing and the price of corn started to go up rapidly” (Interview with Don Gorgonio Lopez, Tzintzuntzan, Morelia, Mexico, Allair 2018). Similar events happened in other areas of the economy: rice, dairy, pig farming, and the maquiladoras to name a few. These are the individuals that seek employment by crossing the US border with Mexico. Their economy has been ruined by corporate takeover of small farms.
Only three countries belong to NAFTA. By no means does that say similar tactics are not used elsewhere for the same purposes. The U.S. demonstrated a precedent for NAFTA beginning in 1991. USAID destroyed Haitian rice production and other commodities, as NAFTA did to Mexican corn and businesses in 1994. Haitian President Aristide’s proposal to raise the minimum wage from $0.33 to $0.50 per hour was killed by USAID.
In order to stop the rise in minimum wage, the organization brought in food aid that dumped “free” rice grown by U.S. farmers (and bought with U.S. taxpayer money) and destroyed Haitian rice production; USAID promoted private education and undermined public schools and adult literacy programs; USAID sidelined import duties on food so U.S. chicken firms could dump unwanted parts of the chicken onto Haiti, thereby destroying Haiti’s poultry sector.
This is the foreign policy that maintains “our interests and promotes democracy” worldwide as well as causing mass exodus to the U.S. border. For many, there is no other alternative.
Journalist Chris Hedges describes NAFTA as “the greatest betrayal of the working class since the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947”.
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