The New Gospel: North American Free Trade
UnpublishedMay
1991
Volume:
24
Number:
6
Taking Note
Mark Fried
If Marx were alive to contemplate Haiti and Paraguay today, he might well declare a new law of history. Something like, "The potential for revolutionary change is directly proportional to the objective hopelessness of the circumstances."
Intro
NACLA
The North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, which promises to unite Mexico, Canada and the United States in an economic union nearly as ambitious as Europe 1992, will permanently alter the face of the continent. Beyond transforming where and how goods are produced, it will set a pattern for a new relationship among the peoples of the three nations and define a new vision for our collective future.
Open Forum
Haroldo Dilla Alfonso
I read NACLA's Cuba report (August 1990) with great pleasure. My first comment concerns the evident consensus among the authors in favor of a multi-party system as the only path to the development of democracy in Cuba. I do not share that view.
Updates
Julie Light
As the Sandinistas prepare for their first party congress this July, fierce debate is taking place in the media and in local assemblies around the country. At issue: should the FSLN see itself as the vanguard of the popular movement, or should it strive for a multi-class, "nationalist" alliance?
Report
David Barkin
Mexico could continue to export labor-intensive products while also providing for the basic needs of its people. Instead, the free trade pact as envisioned will systematically exclude the majority, while offering opportunities for enrichment to a privileged few.
Bruce Campbell
Canada's experience shows free trade to be a foil for shifting power to the private sector, entrenching that power beyond the reach of future governments, and limiting state capacity to pursue national development.
William A. Orme Jr.
Critics are understandably concerned about the annexation of the underpaid Mexican work force by U.S. manufacturers. But a free-trade pact could minimize the damage, by regulating the seemingly inevitable process of integration.
Reviews
Article
William A. Orme Jr.
A WILD CARD NOT ANTICIPATED BY EITHER supporters or opponents of the FTA was President Bush's June 27 unveiling of his "Enterprise for the Americas Initiative." For ten years, White House preaching about the virtues of a unified economy from "the Yukon to the Yucatan" had fallen on deaf ears.
David Barkin
PERHAPS THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT FEA- tures limiting popular discontent in Mexico originate in the unique set of bilateral relations the country maintains with the United States. On the one hand, millions of Mexi- cans depend on their jobs in the north for a substantial part of their income, the sustenance of their families, and even their ability to work in Mexico.
Bruce Campbell
THE FREE TRADE AGREEMENT IS A COMPLEX legal document. The following provides a sample of how the FTA has worked in three areas: key provisions, side deals attached to the FTA, and indirect effects which rein- force or hinder other laws and policies.
William A. Orme Jr.
THE PRO-NAFTA FORCES IN WASHINGTON tend to discount the notion that free trade could face significant opposition insi'de Mexico. They consider the forces behind left-of-center leader Cuauhtemoc Cardenas to be anachronistic populists exploiting mass discontent after one decade of recession and six of single-party rule.
Miriam Davidson
NEARLY HALF-A-MILLION MEXICANS ARE currently employed in maquiladoras-the 1,500 in- bond assembly plants clustered along Mexico's northern border. These overwhelmingly U.