Thread: Outraged Mexicans to Donald Trump: Go ahead and tear up NAFTA, we’re sick of it too

Outraged Mexicans to Donald Trump: Go ahead and tear up NAFTA, we’re sick of it too

January 31, 2017 12:20 PM ET

The Zocalo, a vast square in the heart of Mexico City, has been a gathering place since the days of the Spanish conquistadors. Walk through it today and you’ll encounter, as expected, intense hatred of Donald Trump.

But what you’ll also find is that Mexicans are just as furious at their own government for letting the U.S. president push their country around. What’s more, many proclaim to be fed up with Nafta. Trump’s pledge to rewrite the trade pact doesn’t go far enough for them. It should be scrapped entirely.
The U.S. is not the only country in this world — why are we clinging to them like an umbilical cord?


“We will be better off,” said Eduardo Avila, on a break from his job as a driver. He dug into the pocket of his jeans jacket to show off the lapel pin and ribbon he’d just bought, both emblazoned with a suddenly popular slogan: “United For Mexico. Buy Mexican Goods.”

Trump and his tough talk, Avila said, might just be the shot in the arm that Mexico needs to recognize its potential. “The U.S. is not the only country in this world — why are we clinging to them like an umbilical cord?”

The reality is harsh: The U.S. is by far Mexico’s biggest trading partner, with some US$584 billion in tariff-free goods crossing the border every year. Trump has called Nafta “the worst trade deal in history,” but it has been a boon for Mexico, attracting billions in foreign investment, creating a booming auto industry and diversifying revenue sources for the once oil-dependent economy. In border towns far from Mexico City, Nafta has created thousands of jobs.

None of that matters to Alejandro Sanchez, a vendor on the outskirts of the Zocalo. He welcomes what before Trump’s election was the unthinkable: an end to decades of friendship and economic cooperation with the U.S.

“They can raise the tallest wall in the world, in fact they should. They can keep their burgers and fast food, their junk culture,” he said, peering out from behind stacks of magazines, coloring books and cigarette packets. “I think most of us feel the same way — this is an opportunity. We are such a big country that this will help us activate our domestic economy.”
Give Trump credit, he added. “This man did something right. He united us.”

Mexicans had already been pretty much on the same page about their leader, Enrique Pena Nieto, whose approval ratings are the lowest of any president in the country’s history, according to the Reforma newspaper. That’s in no small part because the government raised gasoline prices by 20 per cent at the start of the year and promised another hike in February, setting off street protests.

Pena Nieto was criticized for meeting with Trump before the U.S. election. Now he’s not getting much credit from the people for cancelling a visit to Washington last week after the American president said he’d follow through on campaign pledges to find a way to make Mexico to pay for a border wall.


A view of the US-Mexican border fence in Tijuana, Mexico. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto
canceled a planned meeting with President Trump over who would pay for Trump's campaign
promise to build a border wall.

In the Zocalo, Trump and Pena Nieto are in a dead heat for most hated president.

“Both of them should be thrown in the trash,” Avila said. “The wall is what matters least. It’s politicians on this side of the border that bother me. How could they allow this person to humiliate us this way?”

It was a lament heard time and again all afternoon. Only the tone and some of the smaller details varied.

Nohemi Sanchez, a recent college graduate, expressed it this way: “We send our best products and produce abroad, and they leave the worst for us. This is what angers me, really — that our government doesn’t work in favour of our interests. We’re a country rich in natural resources but Mexico doesn’t do anything.”

Sitting across the table from Sanchez in one corner of the square, Yareli Flores was listening intently. Music from organ grinders and the shouts of ice-cream vendors filled the air. After a couple of minutes, Flores, a monument restorer on her lunch break, chimed in. She’s glad, she stated, that her five-year-old daughter is too young to understand what’s happening.

“I’m angry and disappointed,” she said. With U.S. politicians or those in Mexico? “All of them. They’ve all disappointed me.”

http://business.financialpost.com/ne...sick-of-it-too

NAFTA robbed all those Mexican farmers of their land and farming enterprises. Left them with almost nothing, no jobs, no home, not enough money to reach a new plateau another way. They all flocked to Mexico City looking for the "jobs" that weren't there in big enough numbers. Their farms were sold to US corporations.

NAFTA needs to end for the people of both countries. We can still trade when we want to, we will visit each othe's nations as tourists, we can still invest in their business world and they in ours, we don't need NAFTA that structures by design the many problems of both nations. It's a failed trade agreement on every level.

Trump needs to give notice of withdrawal and do a bi-lateral agreement with Mexico on terms favorable to US. That will result in a favorable far better position for Mexico without having to suck on US like babies.

When a car plant is built in Mexico, the cars need to be sold to Mexicans, who should have the wages that support the purchase of a vehicle. Mexico needs to raise their wages to solve their problems, not live on remittances, drug money or exports to the United States for items that used to be made in the United States.