Luis Rubio looks at NAFTA from Mexico’s perspective in the Latin Business Chronicle:
NAFTA was the result of a new economic strategy. Above all, however, it represented a major political shift. Instead of looking at the United States as the source of conflict and irritation, as it had historically been portrayed, the new Salinas de Gortari administration (1988-1994) sought out its northern neighbor as a source of stability, support and institutional strength. The objective was to borrow a rules-based system that Mexico lacked.
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There is no question that NAFTA has not fulfilled every expectation that it created. It is also true that Mexico has yet to tackle many of the most important development issues confronting it. Yet, one cannot dismiss what NAFTA has achieved in Mexico and by extension on the Mexico-U.S. border and in the bilateral relationship.
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Many Americans are suffering the consequences of globalization and, particularly, of rapid technological change. Terminating NAFTA would not alter these processes. It would not diminish the pace of integration across North America, either. But it could create a most disorderly integration process where everybody, Americans as well as Mexicans, end up as losers.
