National Press Club Murrow Room
529 14th Street NW, 13th Floor, Washington, DC
Feb 12, 2014
(GMT-5)
Host:
National Press Club
Press Briefing:
“Lessons from NAFTA for the TPP” Did NAFTA Help Mexico?: An Assessment After 20 Years
With:
Representative Rosa DeLauro
Mark Weisbrot, Co-Director, Center for Economic and Policy Research
Lori Wallach, Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch
Moderated by Laura Carlsen, Director, Americas Program
President Obama will travel to Mexico for the North American Leaders Summit on February 19, and NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). A new paper from the Center for Economic and Policy Research released last week examines the economic impact that NAFTA has had on Mexico. Mexico’s growth has lagged in the NAFTA era; out of 20 Latin American countries (South and Central America plus Mexico), Mexico ranks 18, with per capita growth of less than 1 percent annually since 1994.
By comparison, from 1960-1980 Mexico’s GDP per capita nearly doubled. Poverty has been stuck at the same high level; Mexico’s national poverty rate was 52.3 percent in 2012 and was 52.4 percent in 1994. The lack of employment opportunities in a slow-growing economy, plus the displacement (due to imports) of millions in farming, sent many Mexicans to the United States in the years following NAFTA. Speakers at the press briefing discussed NAFTA’s legacy and what lessons may be learned for the proposed TPP.
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