Thread: Mexico leader urges Obama on free trade

Mexico leader urges Obama on free trade
Posted 3 hours 46 minutes ago

Mexican President Felipe Calderon warned US President-elect Barack Obama against revising the North American Free Trade Agreement, saying it would send more Mexicans across US borders.

Mr Obama's campaign included a call for renegotiating the free trade treaty which since 1994 has brought the United States, Mexico and Canada into a single market, saying that it was hurting US workers.

Mr Calderon defended free trade during a summit of 21 Pacific Rim leaders, including outgoing US President George W Bush, who warned together against a drift to protectionism amid the financial crisis.

"If you eliminate the benefits of free trade, you eliminate many of the opportunities for jobs and for growth for both Americans and Mexicans," Mr Calderon told reporters after the summit in Lima, Peru.

"If you get rid of the trade and job opportunities, one of the effects, which no-one wants, would be an increase in emigration from Mexico," he said.

An estimated 12 million undocumented workers, many of them Mexicans, live in the United States, and each year another 300,000 cross the 3,000 kilometre border.

Mr Obama, whose father was from Kenya, has said he supports legal immigration but also controls against illegal immigration.

He voted as a senator to build a wall on the Mexican border.

Mr Calderon also appealed for Mr Obama's leadership in resolving the global financial crisis and ensuring that emerging economies do not suffer disproportionately.

"We will again need the next US administration to take very firm leadership, not just for Americans but for the world," he said.

- AFP
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008 ... tion=world

I believe we should let them figure it out on their own. We need a little protectionism to protect our country and to get it back to normal. Enough of this globalism crap. We have poor quality goods that come from other counties. I say start making it here in America again. Multiculturism in NOT good for our country.

"If you eliminate the benefits of free trade, you eliminate many of the opportunities for jobs and for growth for both Americans and Mexicans," Mr Calderon told reporters after the summit in Lima, Peru.

"If you get rid of the trade and job opportunities, one of the effects, which no-one wants, would be an increase in emigration from Mexico," he said.

I agree but the Mexicans should also invest in rural communities and I hope that we can find common cause in sourcing from Mexico products coming from China.

"If you get rid of the trade and job opportunities, one of the effects, which no-one wants, would be an increase in emigration from Mexico," he said.



Wait a second. For years Calderon and those before him have blamed NAFTA for sending Mexicans across our borders claiming Mexicans got the short end of the deal.

Now we're hearing a total reversal which says if there is any revision....which might ultimately benefit Mexico.....it's going to send even MORE illegal aliens pouring in here.

Which is it? Mexico can't even keep it's BS stories straight anymore

The actual problem is shortage of small business and farm capital the American grain producers were able to out compete and deliver yellow corn to the ranches and pig farms. The larger farmers who had produced yellow corn switched over to white corn which was previously sold by the small village farmers. The small village farmers moved here in numbers.
At the same time Mexico was industrializing and a lot of villagers went to work in factories exporting to the United States. A lot of potential goods production has gone to the Chinese who have lower wages and a better business environment. If NAFTA ends a lot of the jobs would dry up in Mexico and the laborers would want to join their relatives living here.