Subsidized U.S. corn flowing into Mexico under NAFTA displaced millions of Mexican farmers
Evidence
Finally, we must mention the last pillar of this whole system of domination—specific trade treaties. The best known in the Americas is the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, which included Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, and took effect in 1994. NAFTA sharply cut tariffs (import taxes) on goods flowing between the three countries. The claim was that this would simply increase trade among the three. It did, but not in a balanced way. One major effect was that U.S. corn, which was very cheap because of mass production and subsidies from the U.S. government, rushed into Mexico and undercut Mexican corn. Mexicans bought the cheaper U.S. corn, which put millions of Mexican farmers out of business. Many of those farmers were forced to find work in factories owned by U.S. and Canadian corporations at wages far lower than the companies were paying to workers in their home countries, throwing millions out of work in the U.S. and Canada and forcing others to take large pay cuts. — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 1408
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Indigenous Americans cultivated corn in Mexico ten thousand years ago — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the…, 43; NAFTA’s corn flood devastated Chiapas small farmers and triggered the Zapatista uprising — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 1530; Economic liberalism served as Mexico’s equivalent of Mustafa Kemal’s secularism.
Broader Connections
- NAFTA’s corn flood devastated Chiapas small farmers and triggered the Zapatista uprising
#exemplifies(0.95) — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education, 1530 - Indigenous Americans cultivated corn in Mexico ten thousand years ago
#qualifies(0.72) — Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the…, 43 - Economic liberalism served as Mexico’s equivalent of Mustafa Kemal’s secularism.
#expands(0.72)