Bush warned that without NAFTA, migratory pressure from Mexico would be worse."If you do away with NAFTA, there's going to be a lot of Mexicans, more Mexicans out of work," Bush said. "It will make it harder on the border.October 8th, 1993:
"Attorney General Janet Reno, linking two of the nation's most politicized issues, predicted Thursday that the United States can halt illegal immigration from Mexico only by passing the North American Free Trade Agreement."Study from 2006
Undocumented Immigrants in 1992: 3.9 MillionNAFTA lowered wages for workers in Mexico, which lead to an increase in poverty. More poverty meant more people coming to the United States for work so that they can make enough money to feed their families.
Undocumented Immigrants in 2005: 12 Million
NAFTA > Poverty > Illegal Immigration
You'd think we'd have caught on by now. Then again...
so what is it with these free trade deals? who do they actually benefit? because both parties obviously spend countless hours lying about/denying/covering up all the people they screw over
ReplyDeleteWell, that's a pretty complex question, but the simple answer is the multinational corporations. These deals have very very little to do with actual trade as we think of it (goods for goods).
ReplyDeleteThey benefit by being given rights which overrule the laws of the governments involved in these deals, in order to create a better business environment for them. (Better business environment= No labor laws, no unions, no restrictions on how much damage they can do the environment, no taxes).
There are other benefits to these deals for specific industries, if it would lower the tariffs and make them open to our competition(and this is a whole other can of worms that we'll get to at some point) but mostly it's about finding places where companies can work without pesky "labor laws" and "environmental protections".
So the people who benefit when a company does this reward those who will give them more policies like these - that in turn - will give them even more money.
It's a feedback loop centered on the relationship between 95% of republicans,the corporate wing of the democratic party and the corporations. They pass these deals that help out the corporations, the CEOs give money to people who will pass more of these deals, and make them even richer.
A vicious cycle doesn't even begin to describe it. And if you want more talk of trade and the current world economic system, we'll there's no better place than this blog! I'll have everyone bored to tears with the number of times I'll be bringing this stuff up.