Unsurprisingly, these same regions of Mexico later saw some of the highest migration rates to the United States. NAFTA, instead of improving living standards in Mexico as promised, hollowed-out wages, exacerbated extreme economic precarity and inequality, and forced millions of farmers and garment workers to migrate in search of survival. During NAFTA's first six years, the number of annual immigrants from Mexico to the US more than doubled, coinciding with a flood of US subsidized corn into Mexico.
The collapse of Mexico's farming industry and the proliferation of low-wage maquiladora jobs are just two examples of how free trade policies drive migration. NAFTA's legacy includes environmental degradation, the dismantling of communal land systems "ejidos", the decline of domestic manufacturing, and the erosion of agricultural self-sufficiency, all of which have contributed to displacement.
Migration, then, is not a "border crisis," but a predictable outcome of our own trade policies.
Furthermore, the insecure immigration status of migrants displaced by NAFTA allows the giants of the agriculture, construction, meatpacking, dairy, and garment industries in the US to exploit them for underpaid and unsafe labor, preying on workers' fear of deportation to prevent them from speaking up or unionizing. These same industries also spend millions lobbying for restrictive immigration policies that maintain a steady flow of vulnerable workers, ensuring they don't have to rely on hiring citizens or legal residents at fair wages. There is an 83% chance that any garment made in America was made in Los Angeles by exploited immigrant labor.
Immigrants are then scapegoated, accused of "stealing American jobs," and used as political weapons to obscure the real issue: free trade policies that support corporations while hurting domestic and foreign workers.
Why is this particularly relevant now?
The current administration claims to dislike free trade agreements and support tariffs, and yet they are negotiating new trade agreements that are supposed to reduce or eliminate threatened tariffs. While it is too soon to know the outcome of current negotiations, and we want to keep an open mind, we remain skeptical that the outcome will turn out better for workers.
The 2020 renegotiation of NAFTA updated the agreement without changing its exploitative structure or delivering any real improvements for the working class, simply rebranding it as the USMCA (US Mexico Canada Agreement). The new agreement still protects corporate profits and US agribusiness, suppresses wages, and expands monopoly rights. Crucially, USMCA continues to prioritize the interests of large corporations over rural workers in all three countries.
The USMCA included modest improvements such as the "Rapid Response Mechanism" that enables workers' organizations to petition the US or Canadian government regarding specific abuses in Mexican factories that deny collective bargaining rights, with a response required by the respective governments within a specified timeframe. However, with exploitative structures still in place across the system, the "race to the bottom" remains alive and well.
Therefore, as the mandatory, once-every-six-years review of the USMCA approaches in July 2026, workers and workers-rights groups on both sides of the border are gearing up to make sure their demands are heard.
Here are some concrete changes that workers and their communities would like to see in the upcoming USMCA review:
-
Establishing a manufacturing minimum wage in Mexico so that corporations can no longer force workers to accept less on either side of the border.
- Removing corn and beans from the treaty so that Mexican farmers have a chance at earning a fair living without subsidized US agribusiness flooding the market.
-
Ensure that multinational corporations are subject to national courts. Remove foreign investor rights and Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) provisions that allow corporations to challenge human rights protections.
-
Recognize indigenous autonomy in the face of extractive projects on their ancestral lands and create a trinational fund to compensate for environmental losses and damages.
-
Implement transparent and inclusive policymaking processes. Center the voices of migrant and working class communities instead of corporate-dominated trade advisory committees. Publicize negotiation texts.
For further reading and policy recommendations please check out the extensive report Exporting Instability, Importing Exploitation written by Iza Camarillo and jointly published by Public Citizen and the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA). The United Auto Workers have also published a separate set of demands for the USCMA review.
The Quixote Center is participating in coalitions advocating for changes in the USMCA and has already signed one letter calling for specific amendments. Current trade policy is confusing and changing quickly, but we will do our best to keep our supporters informed. We think that protectionist policies (tariffs) probably make sense for some commodities and not for others. The devil is always in the details.
If you wish to leave a comment, visit our blog post HERE.