January 1, 1994 marks the 20th anniversary of two consequential events in Mexico’s history: one still fiercely debated and the other largely forgotten.
On this day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into being. The treaty was designed to open the flow of goods and investment through the United States, Canada and Mexico, create new jobs, promote economic growth and improve environmental conditions and living standards in all three countries.
Also on the morning of January 1, 1994 – timed to coincide with NAFTA’s launch – some 3,000 armed insurgents, mostly rural indigenous people, seized towns and cities in the southern state Chiapas before facing a counter offensive from Mexican troops and retreating back into the jungle less than two weeks later. The anti neo-liberal Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) stood against everything NAFTA espoused, and effectively declared war on the Mexican government, becoming an annoying thorn in their side for the next decade and a half.
For Mexico, NAFTA – signed by presidents Carlos Salinas de Gortari, George Bush Sr. and Brian Mulroney – was a logical extension of the free market economic policies started under the presidency of Miguel de la Madrid, who had led Mexico into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in July 1986.
The signing of the treaty not only brought clearer trading rules and enforcement mechanisms to the table but also the immediate elimination of tariffs on half of Mexico’s exports to the United States and one-third of U.S. imports into Mexico.
The treaty was designed so that virtually all tariffs between the three nations would be eliminated within 15 years.
The verdict on whether NAFTA’s first two decades has been a success depends greatly on what side of the political spectrum you find yourself.Free marketeers say NAFTA has created more jobs in the United States than it has eliminated. According to the Office of U.S. Trade representative, income gains and tax cuts from NAFTA were worth up to 930 dollars each year for the average U.S. household of four in the treaty’s first decade. In Mexico, NAFTA supporters say the treaty has opened markets, facilitated technology transfer, stabilized the macro-economy and stimulated democratic reform.
Others take the point of view that NAFTA has hastened the decline of U.S. manufacturing sector (one report estimated workers in Canada and Mexico displaced 829,280 U.S. jobs between 1994 and 2006, mostly high-wage positions in manufacturing).
And, say the treaty’s detractors, much of the expected corporate investment that NAFTA augured for Mexico has been in maquiladoras, low-paid assembly plants whose jobs have failed to raise the living standards of most Mexican families. Also affected have been Mexican manufacturers who were protected by tariffs and suddenly found themselves driven out of business as less expensive, higher quality merchandise flowed into the country.
In addition, argue critics, NAFTA dealt a lethal blow to Mexico’s small farming operations, bringing an influx of subsidized food imports (corn products, in particular) and increased migration to urban areas, as well as to the United States.
One of NAFTA’s aims was to help lift millions of Mexicans into the middle-classes. Despite increased domestic demand for cars, cell phones, computers, etcetera, there is no conclusive evidence to suggest that today’s greater purchasing power signifies a major exodus to what other countries might regard as the “middle class.”
Canada’s experience with NAFTA has been less fraught with controversy, and free marketeers are quick to highlight the massive elevation in trade with Mexico – a six-fold increase over the past 20 years – and increased U.S. investment that has provided higher-paying jobs in the automotive, agri-business, energy, aerospace and transportation sectors.
And there is little doubt that NAFTA has strengthened relations between the three partner countries. Close cooperation is evident in a host of related programs, including technical exchanges on matters such as industrial relations, occupational safety and health, child labor, gender equality and protection of migrant workers.
While debate on the virtues, or otherwise, of NAFTA is likely to rage on for another 10 or 20 years, discussion of the Zapatista’s struggle against economic globalization has all but vanished, almost relegated to a footnote in Mexico’s history books.
The Zapatista’s January 1994 rebellion, under the leadership of a ski-masked university professor and poet calling himself Subcommandante Marcos, lasted all of 12 days before a cease-fire was agreed. Over the ensuing years, the rebels participated in peace talks and signed agreements with the federal government that were never enacted. Realizing that the official dialogue was getting them nowhere, the EZLN but concentrated its efforts on creating autonomous municipalities in the Lanacondan jungle, putting their brand of alternative, representative democracy into action.
The EZLN remains bitterly opposed to NAFTA but its fight against the “Mexican establishment” is a much broader, encompassing – in the words of author and investigator Neil F. Harvey – “a combination of ecological crisis, lack of available productive land, the drying up of nonagricultural sources of income, the political and religious reorganization of indigenous communities since the 1960s, and the re-articulation of ethnic identities with emancipatory political discourses.”
Harvey estimates that 120,000 to 150,000 people are now living within Zapatista communities (presided over by “juntas de buen gobierno” – good government committees) and have made significant progress in education, women’s rights and overall living standards.
While this is a significant number and a buffer to any future government intimidation, the media spotlight on Zapatistas has diminished immeasurably, in part because Marcos has retreated into the selva and declined publicity. Even his appearance around the country in the Zapatistas “Other Campaign” – during the 2006 presidential election – failed to spark much global or national interest.