People must remember that much of what is called “trade” has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with one business selling to consumers in another country, but a large corporation (or conglomerate) splitting up its labor processes so that it makes the same product or sub-product in areas where it takes advantage of the best costs. In Mexico, this led to a lot of local manufacturing jobs getting shut out in favor of transnational employers who needed fewer people and which siphoned net funds out of the local community.

From the Economic Policy Institute’s retrospective on NAFTA:

Mexico is much changed in the seven years since NAFTA was implemented in 1994. Although Mexico now has a large trade surplus with the U.S., Mexico has also developed a large and growing overall trade deficit with the rest of the world. In fact, Mexico’s net imports from the rest of the world now substantially exceed its net exports to the United States. Official unemployment levels in Mexico are lower now than before NAFTA, but this decline in the official rate simply reflects the absence of unemployment insurance in Mexico. In fact, underemployment and work in low-pay, low-productivity jobs (e.g., unpaid work in family enterprises) actually has grown rapidly since the early 1990s. Furthermore, the normal process of rural-to-urban migration that is typical of developing economies has reversed since the adoption of NAFTA. The rural share of the population increased slightly between 1991 and 1997, as living and working conditions in the cities deteriorated.

Between 1991 and 1998, the share of workers in salaried jobs with benefits fell sharply in Mexico. The compensation of the remaining self-employed workers, who include unpaid family workers as well as small business owners, was well above those of the salaried sector in 1991.

By 1998, the incomes of salaried workers had fallen 25%, while those of the self-employed had declined 40%. At that point, the average income of the self-employed was substantially lower than that of the salaried labor force. This reflects the growth of low-income employment such as street vending and unpaid family work (for example, in shops and restaurants). After seven years, NAFTA has not delivered the promised benefits to workers in Mexico, and few if any of the agreement’s stated goals has been attained…

…The decline in real wages and the lack of access to stable, well-paid jobs are critical problems confronting Mexico’s workforce. While NAFTA has benefited a few sectors of the economy, mostly maquiladora industries and the very wealthy, it has also increased inequality and reduced incomes and job quality for the vast majority of workers in Mexico. In many ways (such as the stagnation of the manufacturing share of employment), the entire process of development has been halted, and in some cases it even may have been reversed. NAFTA has created some of the most important challenges for Mexico’s development in the 21st century. The question that remains is whether Mexico can, under NAFTA, restart its stalled development and find a way to redistribute the benefits of the resulting growth.

http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/briefingpapers_nafta01_mx

Gross oversimplification, to be fair. ‘Conservative’ is a big and ill-defined word. ‘Guns God and Gold’ conservatives (the Ron Paul/Ayn Rand crowd) would find this statement, to put it politely, extremely objectionable.

So-called “free trade” (investor favoritism) agreements typically destroy jobs in Latin America.

That is exactly what the empirical numbers show with regard to Mexico.

This states exactly the opposite of the evidence I have seen. Granted I’d like to see a little more ‘fair trade’ mixed into the free trade policies (i.e. cost of living minimum wages), but my understanding is that for every one person free trade hurts, it helps ten (in a figurative sense). If I’m wrong I don’t mind admitting it. Would you mind throwing up a link?

He is aware that people in Mexico can’t vote for him, right?

Yes, but Latino-Americans can.

The gilded age set are the real conservatives. It’s part of their ideology that they are specially chosen to rule, and if shipping jobs south of the border helps them keep that rule, then that’s what they will do.

That is exactly what the empirical numbers show with regard to Mexico.

Now, if we would stop insisting that our closest neighbors pursue idiotic right-wing free market fundamentalist voo-doo economic policies which destroy local jobs in favor of transnational labor division, maybe we could actually help create jobs in all 3 nations.

But, hey, why listen to all those labor unions and workers’ rights groups and community activists throughout Central and South America when you can listen to neofundamentalist economic hacks in the USA?

If he could do that, I’d vote for him.

Goddamn diet.

Awesome! While we’re at it, let’s create more jobs all over the whole freakin’ world, ‘kay, John? Let’s invent personal jetpacks that run on Kool-Aid and matter replicators that make chocolate doughnuts that won’t make us fat! Let’s build an elevator right to the moon!

Crazy ol’ man.