The shift reflects disappointment that NAFTA hasn't done more to transform Mexico's economy, said Dan Lund, president of Mund Americas. Although the nation's exports have soared and Mexico has attracted record levels of foreign investment, more than 40% of its citizens still live in poverty. The nation still isn't creating enough jobs to keep up with population growth.
Mexico's government oversold NAFTA to get it approved, Lund said. "It was as if everything, including adolescent acne, would be resolved."
Free trade boosters say unrealistic expectations have soured ordinary people in both countries on NAFTA. The pact, they believe, is a scapegoat for failed government policies and larger economic trends.
Although NAFTA clearly has put some American factory hands out of work, manufacturing employment has been declining since the 1970s, largely as a result of automation.
NAFTA may have pushed some Mexican farmers off the land. But experts say most illegal immigrants were pulled north by back-to-back economic booms in the United States, where they found companies eager to hire them regardless of their legal status.
Mexico's economy lags in part because it's dominated by monopolies that its government has been unwilling or unable to dismantle. Its farm sector was struggling long before NAFTA, said David Lewis, vice president of Manchester Trade Ltd., a Washington-based consulting firm specializing in international trade.
Under the agreement, the last tariffs on agricultural products were lifted Dec. 31. Although Mexico had 14 years to prepare its farmers with subsidies, technical assistance, land reform and other help, many small growers say it failed to do so. They want President Felipe Calderon to renegotiate NAFTA's agricultural chapter to restore tariffs on commodities such as corn and beans.
But his administration has opposed any such move. NAFTA backers note that some Mexican farmers have prospered under the deal: Although only about 5% do any exporting, they've been so successful at sending avocados, tomatoes and other fruit north that Mexico now runs a trade surplus in agricultural products with the United States.
Even U.S. critics of NAFTA agree that there's no turning back globalization, but they say the U.S. must get tougher in demanding equitable exchanges.
Sens. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) recently introduced legislation to make it harder to pass trade agreements unless they include a detailed analysis of what's in it for the U.S., such as how many jobs are expected to be lost or gained.
