Monday, September 10, 2012

3 Cheers For NAFTA - Growing Mexican Middle Class Buying Tons of USA Made Goods

I am a pretty big FREE TRADE PERSON. NAFTA has been a source of controversy in American politics. It is good too see it working and I think the naysayers proven generally wrong. In fact one can really question the pickle we would be in right now if this had been approved.

Here are a few blurbs from this very good Washington Post article Middle-class Mexicans snap up more products ‘Made in USA’

...The United States sold more stuff to Mexico than to Brazil, India, Japan and Britain combined...



....About 6 million jobs in the United States depend on trade with Mexico, according to the consulting group Trade Partnership Worldwide, which calculated the total for the Mexican government in 2008.


More than 70 percent of the chickens Texas ships beyond its borders go to Mexico; New Jersey sends $1 billion in pharmaceuticals; Iowa exports $121 million in pork; Montana, $59 million in copper and molybdenum......


....More and more, Mexican and U.S. companies work together. Researchers say that an imported product from Mexico sold in the United States actually is 40 percent “Made in U.S.A.,” because of the sharing of parts and labor between neighbors. That same import from China to the United States is only 4 percent “Made in U.S.A.”...

Good stuff and one can just imagine what will happen when the American economy gets back online. Mexico is a part of that solution.

Of course trade  does not work in isolation. What this means for political, social, and cultural environment of both countries will be something to observe.







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