PiktoChart graphic by Maria Esquinca showing countries in the TPP

New U.S. international trade deal raises concerns about shadowy negotiations

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EL PASO — Clouded in secrecy, the United States is negotiating a trade agreement with 11 other countries throughout the Asia-Pacific region, including Mexico, known as the Trans Pacific Partnership (TTP). TPP has been compared to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a trade agreement between Mexico, the U.S, and Canada that was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993 and came into effect in 1994. Critics of TPP have referred to it as NAFTA on steroids. The other countries involved in the agreement are Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam, Brunei Darussalam, Chile, Malaysia and Japan. Negotiations for the treaty have been conducted behind closed doors with no public or congressional input.

Mexican crafts sold at El Paso Saddleblanket. (Robert Brown / Borderzine.com)

NAFTA links 450 million persons in a $17-trillion market

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EL PASO – The North American Free Trade Agreement, (NAFTA) created 18 years ago spawned millions of jobs in Mexico, sending $160 billion in business south of the border. “Never did we expect during the negotiations the success that NAFTA has had,” said Dr. Herminio Blanco, founder of Soluciones Estratégicas and former Minister of Trade and Industry for Mexico. Speaking to students and faculty at the The University of Texas at El Paso February 7, Blanco said, “Mexico has been able to attract $160 billion. Never would we have thought that possible.” The number of jobs created in Mexico by NAFTA is difficult to establish, he said, “…but definitely we’re speaking about at least 2 million families that have jobs directly created by investments that came to Mexico because of NAFTA.”

NAFTA now links 450 million people producing $17 trillion worth of goods and services. The other NAFTA countries (Canada and Mexico) were the top two purchasers of U.S. exports in 2010.

Dr. Joe Heyman, a volunteer with Occupy El Paso and a Professor at UTEP, speaks at Santa Fe bridge. (Robert Brown/Borderzine.com)

The Occupy movement took on NAFTA at the Santa Fe Bridge

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EL PASO –  While most folks celebrated New Year’s Day with family and friends thinking about those unachievable resolutions, some two dozen people from Occupy El Paso and Occupy Las Cruces flocked to the Santa Fe Bridge, also known as the Puente Del Norte (PDN or Bridge of the North), to protest the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which marked its 18th year on January 1st. With signs demanding an end to NAFTA (Have ta End NAFTA, Free Trade isn’t free, NAFTA Cost Us Our Jobs and the like), members of the Occupy Movements accompanied by members of the El Paso Chapter of The Brown Berets held what they referred to as a teach-in where speakers would speak against NAFTA. “This is one of the ways that we can work on the overall goal which is to make the public aware of the disaster that the last 18 years of NAFTA have been,” said Joe Heyman a volunteer with Occupy El Paso and a Professor and Chair of Sociology and Anthropology Department with the University of Texas at El Paso. Some of the complaints listed in a pamphlet handed out by participants at the rally were that NAFTA has cost 682,900 U.S. jobs, including 35,000 from El Paso, the disparagement in pay between U.S. and Mexican factory workers, and that trade is responsible for 15% – 25% of the growth in wage inequality in the U.S.

One of the speakers at the rally, Lorena Andrade, a member of Mujer Obrera, an organization for working Mexican women, said that the majority of the 35,000 jobs lost belonged to women, most of them older than 50 years of age, with very little English and a low level of formal education. NAFTA is the free trade agreement between Canada, the United States, and Mexico which was designed to facilitate International Trade between the countries by opening the borders of each nation to the commodities of the other two member nations and in doing so create the world’s largest free trade area.

Ambassador Rozental: NAFTA Needs an Update to Fit Twenty First Century Demands

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EL PASO — Mexico and the U.S. are cooperating more than ever before on trade and immigration issues, but the North America Free Trade Agreement needs to be spruced up to deal with 21st Century problems.

Both countries and Canada have changed since 1994 when NAFTA was signed but the policies they agreed to have remained virtually static according to Andrés Rozental, former Mexican Deputy Foreign Minister and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. “Today there is an unprecedented degree of cooperation between Mexico and the U.S.,” Rozental said, “They have a greater degree of trust, but people change and federal policies stay them same. “

The relationship is slowly evolving and filtering into three very important areas, trade, immigration and security, he said. Rozental, a career diplomat for Mexico, told faculty and students at the University of Texas at El Paso recently that even with the improved degree of collaboration between the U.S. and Mexico “there’s always more that can be done, especially on the trading issue.”

The “mutual finger pointing” of the past is the cause of today’s bilateral political problems, he said. Both countries are at fault, he said.  “Mexico’s take has always been what I call the ostrich policy.  They hid and it was the U.S.’s problem to solve,” Rozental said.