You really do not understand Mexico, starting with the old Maquila program, which was a very limited attempt at free trade, originally initiated illegally by some bold bordertown businessmen, and only reluctantly sanctioned years later by the corrupt PRI government in Mexico City. It was nothing more than a product assembly program, horribly exploitive of cheap Mexican labor. All production had to be sent back to the US. None of the production could be sold in Mexico, because before NAFTA, Mexico totally protected its own manufacturers (except for the automotive industry), made up entirely of fat cat political cronies, who produced inferior, expensive products and services. Is Mexico better after NAFTA? Of course it is. But to compete in the real world, Mexicans had to bring their business practices into the 21st Century. That took time, and resulted in laying off tens of thousands of needless workers left over from the days when our inefficient businesses were government owned or government protected. The banks in Mexico City alone eliminated 40,000 jobs after they were re-privatized. The very fact that Mexico has maintained its overall employment base and that wages have increased slightly during this process of “corporate right-sizing” is a testimony to the advantages of free enterprise.

In the past few years, the Mexican economy has finally begun to mature. The peso has stabilized. Inflation is under control. Products and services are better and more cost effective. For example, private financial institutions in Mexico now offer 30 year, fixed rate home mortgages in pesos at 9%, and have expanded middle class home ownership for hundreds of thousands of families. In case you don’t know, no other Latin American economy has accomplished this privately funded boon to homeowners. Only a handful of sophisticated countries throughout the world have a privately funded home mortgage market. With this evolution in our financial services sector alone, Mexico has taken a giant stride into the First World.

Wal-mart is now Mexico’s biggest non-government employer. They and other multi-nationals have been in the leadership of erasing the racist, classist hiring and promotion practices that plague Mexico and all of Latin America. Wal-mart is a meritocracy. They don’t care if you look like an Indian or who your father was. They just care about competence and hard work. Wal-mart and American companies like Wal-mart, by being equal opportunity employers, are actually precipitating the first meaningful social revolution in Mexico’s modern history.

Wal-mart has not only vastly expanded the quality and choice of products available to Mexican consumers, they have brought down the prices and forced all of their competitors and suppliers to become more efficient. Mexico’s economic minister recently credited Wal-mart as being a significant factor in bringing Mexican inflation under control. He was wrong. It was not Wal-mart, it was the free enterprise system.

People in the USA consistently misunderstand NAFTA. The American automotive industry was allowed to manufacture in Mexico before NAFTA, and many US consumer products were being assembled on the border. The US imposed no import duties on Mexico. But American and Canadian companies could not own businesses in Mexico or even sell to Mexico without incurring very high import duties. NAFTA OPENED UP MEXICO TO FREE ENTERPRISE. NAFTA in itself did not materially increase Mexico’s ability to take jobs from America, but did impose the beginnings of fair labor laws and a greater sense of environmental responsibility. And if the jobs had not gone to Mexico, they would have gone to China. And if American companies are denied the right to manufacture offshore, then the American consumers will all buy Toyotas or Lenovo computers and eventually there will be no more American companies.

Mexico has a long way to go to recover from, as you say, its “traditional economic model” that tragically repressed its people and economy (along with the rest of Latin America) for centuries. However, Mexico is a far more civilized and sophisticated society than any of you gringos seem to understand, and people here are working hard to advance themselves by simply becoming more productive. NAFTA allowed American companies to do business in Mexico, and American companies have led the march in creating more and more economic opportunity for the vast majority of non-elite Mexicans. Thank you NAFTA.