NAFTA Plunged 20M Mexicans into Poverty: Report Television del Sur
go to original March 30, 2017

Abby Martin outlines the disastrous effects of so-called "free trade" policy NAFTA, including the ejection of over two million Mexican farmers, a surge in sweatshop labor and the destruction of Mexico's food sovereignty. (Empire Files)

Mexico's so-called “prosperity” under the North American Free Trade Agreement over the past 23 years has actually seen a shocking 20 million people fall into poverty in the country, according to a report by the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

While Mexico and NAFTA have both been convenient punching bags for right-wing nationalist politicians in the U.S. like President Donald Trump, the Mexican working-class and campesinos have been forced to pay a devastating social cost for the free trade deal.

According to the CEPR, Mexican poverty has risen since the deal's implementation in 1994 as economic growth and real wages stagnated while nearly five million family farmers were displaced, propelling Mexico's poor toward migration to the United States — crucial drivers of social instability and unrest.

“From 1994 to 2000, the annual number of Mexicans emigrating to the United States soared by 79 percent. The number of Mexican-born residents living in the United States more than doubled from 4.5 million in 1990 to 9.4 million in 2000,” the report stated.

In a press statement, economist and CEPR Co-Director Mark Weisbrot said, "As the U.S. and Mexico consider renegotiating NAFTA, there should be a serious discussion of what went wrong for Mexico, as well as for the United States."

Read the rest at teleSUR

Related: White House Calls for Changing, But Not Scrapping, NAFTA in Draft Letter (The Washington Post)

Related: Trump's Aggressiveness Toward Mexico Could Be Good for Everyone But the US (Business Insider)

Related: Trump's Gamble: Mexico Could Actually Gain More from a NAFTA Redo (PRI's The World)

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