Thread: Free Trade and Immigration: Cause and Effect

Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Wednesday, July 18th, 2007
Press Releases, Mexico, Front Page, Latin America, Economic

Free Trade and Immigration: Cause and Effect

• The just-taken Congressional action by The House leadership against enacting the free trade pact entered into by the Bush administration with Columbia represents a striking setback against President Alvaro Uribe and the U.S. president. Nevertheless, it is a victory for probity, a blow against Bogotá’s scandal-ridden government, and a denouncement of Uribe’s indifference to human rights.

• Although discussion of free trade and immigration issues has recently stalled in Congress, supporters on both sides of the aisle are attempting to revive the debate as perspectives continue to polarize.

• The combination of free trade and heavy U.S. subsidies has crippled the Mexican agricultural sector, causing impoverished former subsistence farmers to immigrate to the U.S. by any means necessary.

• Immigration is not the demon it is often portrayed as—nor is it devoid of any profound dangers to the well-being of the U.S., as pro-immigration forces insist.

• Conservative policies of supporting free trade while restricting immigration are inherently incompatible.

In recent months, the U.S. Congress has circumvented the will of President George Bush by delaying any action on free trade agreements with Peru and Panama. Moreover, the Congressional leadership has just decided to refuse to further discuss the Columbian free trade agreement at this time, damning one of President Alvaro Uribe’s most prized economic initiatives. Now, these issues, much like the immigration debate, will most likely not be revived until after the 2008 elections, if at all. In the meantime, it is vital that all parties involved examine the inextricable link between these two failed policies—immigration reform and expansion of free trade. As U.S. concern over both immigration and free trade issues were reaching a fever pitch, the reality of how the latter impacts the former has not been adequately addressed. It is likely that the group most directly affected by these issues has been the rural, agrarian population of Mexico. Since 1994, the year in which the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into effect, immigration from Mexico to the U.S. has more than doubled, due, in large part, to the trade pact.

Why Immigration Has Spiked
In recent years, subsidies received by U.S. corn farmers have resulted in overproduction—flooding the market and causing large dips in the price of the crop. Under Washington’s agricultural subsidy program, in 2000, U.S. corn producers alone received $10.1 billion in payments from the U.S. government—ten times the Mexican government’s annual agricultural budget. Subsidies are determined by a farm’s land area and historical output; thus, due to these factors, the vast majority of the aid goes to large agribusinesses. In the U.S., the top ten percent of agricultural subsidy recipients (most of whom earn, on average, over a quarter million dollars per year) receive over 70 percent of the subsidy dollars. There are also provisions for “counter cyclical payments,â€

NAFTA Blanked US Hard.

Dixie

I remember lots of folks hollering about NAFTA. You would think that these idiots in Washington would be able to implement such policies much better than 6 th graders. Helter Skelter, here we go boys! We will tweak it as we go?

I ain't buying it. The tweaking ain't working. Too much greed and not enough common sense.

Remember one of the selling points was that the illegals would stay home and work and not be crossing to the US -

That worked out just like all the promises of NAFTA.