The Guardian: Mexico would be better off without NAFTA

6-1-14

Translated by Anoosha Boralessa (December 2015). Not reviewed by bilterals.org or any other organization or person.

This Monday, in an extensive report on “20 years on from the Signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)”, the British newspaper, the Guardian, has claimed that Mexico could have maintained economic growth that it sustained between 1960 and 1980 without the need for an agreement.

The newspaper’s research warrants that if Mexico had not signed NAFTA, Mexicans would have a standard of living much like that currently enjoyed by several European nations.

The article states:
“if we take the last 20 years, the Mexican economy does not present its best face.”
It goes on to claim that,
“from 1994, it has been ranked among the 18 economies that are growing at less than 1% per year.”

The research challenges one of the basic assumptions of several economists who categorically declare that Mexico would be worse off without NAFTA; the British newspaper indicates that in the period 1960-1980, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita of our Country almost doubled, something that did not happen after 20 years of free trade.

The newspaper asserts:
"Development in this period implied substantial increases in the Mexican standard of living, so much so that if the country had maintained this rate of growth, today it would have European living standards”.

The article, published this Monday, draws a comparison with economic development in Korea, pointing out:
“Mexico, like the rest of the region, began a long period of neoliberal changes which began which the management of the debt crisis at the beginning of the 1980s, sweeping away industrial policies and economic development”.

The newspaper argues that deregulation of trade and investment coupled with rigorous fiscal and monetary policies ended a period of growth and development. The newspaper concludes:
“Between 1980 and 2000, there was hardly 16% growth in Mexico, a far cry from the 99% in the previous 20 years.”