TLACHINOLA, Mexico — Francisco Herrera Sanchez is not an economics expert and knows little about globalization. But the octogenarian says he knows that something has gone terribly wrong with U.S.-backed trade policies that were supposed to lift millions of Mexicans from poverty.
He has seen hundreds of residents flee this farming community for the United States since 1994, when the North American Free Trade Agreement began opening Mexico's markets to more low-cost U.S. agricultural products. He feels his neighbors' absence in the meager receipts at his tiny grocery in this hamlet about 3 1/2 hours southeast of the capital. "The riches are up there," said the 85-year-old widower, referring to the U.S. Here "there is nothing, not even music. Just silence, like a dead man hanging."
Many Americans are angry that as many as 12 million illegal immigrants, mostly Mexican, are living in the U.S., driven by lack of opportunities at home. Critics are demanding that Mexico right its stumbling economy, create jobs for its people and end its de facto development strategy of shipping its problems north of the border.
But some experts say U.S. economic policies have played a role in fueling the mass exodus. Pushed hard by the United States, Mexico began embracing the Washington-backed prescription of privatization, free trade and government austerity in the early 1980s. A quarter of a century later, the results are decidedly mixed and are the heart of Sunday's cliffhanger presidential election in Mexico.
The contest pits leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who wants to boost social spending and rethink the NAFTA relationship, against conservative Felipe Calderon, who wants to maintain Mexico's policy on free trade and open the country's state-controlled energy sector to private investment. Their divergent views reflect the soaring achievements and bitter disappointments that have accompanied Mexico's economic restructuring.
Strict fiscal and monetary discipline has helped Mexico rise Lazarus-like from its devastating 1994 peso devaluation. Inflation is tame. Interest rates are relatively low. The government's books are balanced, and Mexico's debt is rated investment grade. It was a stunning comeback for a nation that had a history of lurching from one financial crisis to another.
"It's stability," said President Vicente Fox in an interview this year. "This is a big, big change in Mexico."
