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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.