what free trade can do for your country

NAFTA is no model for sustainable development despite its success in transforming one of the world's most protected economies into one of its most open. Since 1985, when Mexico began its rapid liberalization process, exports have doubled and foreign direct investment has nearly tripled. According to the NAFTA model, with inflation significantly in check, Mexico should have reaped the rewards of liberalization. It hasn't.

According to official figures from the World Bank and the Mexican government:

• Economic growth has been slow. Since 1985, Mexico has seen per capita real growth of just 1%, compared to 3.4% from 1960 to 1980.
  
• Job growth has been sluggish. There has been little job creation, falling far short of the demand in Mexico from new entrants into the labor force. Manufacturing, one of the few sectors to show significant economic growth, has seen a net loss in jobs since NAFTA took effect. This is despite a 45% increase in productivity.
  
• The new jobs are not good jobs. Some 60% of the employed do not receive any of the benefits mandated by Mexican law. One-third of the economically active population works in the informal sector.
  
• Wages have declined. The real minimum wage is down 60% since 1982, 23% under NAFTA. Contractual wages are down 55% since 1987. Manufacturing wages are down 12% under NAFTA.
  
• Poverty has increased. The number of households living in poverty has grown 80% since 1984, with some 75% of Mexico's people now below the poverty line. Income distribution has become more lopsided, leaving Mexico with one of the hemisphere's worst records.
  
• The rural sector is in crisis, beset by grain imports from the United States, decreasing commodity prices, and reduced government support. Four-fifths of rural Mexico lives in poverty, over half in extreme poverty.
  
• Imports surpass exports, leaving Mexico with a serious global balance-of-trade deficit.
  
• The environment has deteriorated. The Mexican government estimates that the economic costs of environmental degradation have amounted to 10% of annual GDP, or $36 billion per year. These costs dwarf economic growth, which amounted to only $9.4 billion annually.
  

from: http://www.americaspolicy.org/reports/2003/0306globalization_body.html
at: http://www.americaspolicy.org/

erosion of sovereignty

A long article about NAFTA's Chapter 11:
http://www.citizen.org/publications/release.cfm?ID=7076
from Public Citizen

Excerpt:
However, the majority of the investor-to-state cases filed to date have had little to do with the seizure of property NAFTA supporters feared. Instead, the cases challenge environmental laws, regulations and government decisions at the national, state and local level:

• The California-based Metalclad company successfully challenged the denial of a construction permit by a Mexican municipality for the building of a toxic waste facility;
  
  
• Environmental and health bans of suspected toxins have been challenged, with one case already resulting in reversal of a Canadian government ban on the gasoline additive MMT;
  
  
• Canada's implementation of two international environmental agreements has been successfully challenged, and Canada will soon be ordered to pay damages to U.S. investors in both cases;
  
  
• Foreign corporations have taken two lawsuits they lost in U.S. domestic courts to be "reheard" in the NAFTA investor-to-state system, one challenging the concept of sovereign immunity regarding a contract dispute with the City of Boston and the other challenging the rules of civil procedure, the jury system and a damage award in a Mississippi state court contract case;
  
  
• The American company, United Parcel Service (UPS), has filed a suit challenging the governmental provision of parcel and courier services by the Canadian postal service; and
  
  
• A Canadian steel fabrication company challenged a federal "Buy America" law for highway construction projects in the U.S.