The Devastation of NAFTA on Corn

During the 1980's, there was a growing trend towards trade liberalization, where tariffs and other barriers impeding trade between countries were removed with the negotiation of free trade agreements between countries. Specifically, President Ronald Reagan proposed a North American common market, better facilitating and incentivizing trade between the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

After a long series of negotiations between these countries, in 1992, NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, came into existence. The purpose of NAFTA and other trade agreements are to lower costs and increase competition and investment by opening up markets and removing the barriers to trade between these North American countries. One of the most basic economic concepts, for example, is that of trade, and how increasing trade between countries is able to most efficiently allocate resources and minimize the opportunity costs for all countries involved.

However, there is a dark side to this increasing trade liberalization. Even as GDP numbers may rise for all members involved, economic measurements do not factor in a lot of negative externalities that may be produced as a result of NAFTA and other trade agreements. Specifically, as a result of NAFTA, Mexico's agriculture industry was heavily impacted. According to the New York Times, over two million Mexican corn farmers were forced to leave their farms because of NAFTA. And as a result of that, 20 million Mexicans live in "food poverty," lacking access to basic food and suffering from malnutrition.

Because NAFTA opened up Mexico's markets, it let the subsidized corn farmers of the United States out-compete Mexican farmers and put them out of their very way of life. Furthermore, allowing these US farmers to take over Mexico's markets also causes the degradation of the environment. Because these subsidized US farmers are able to lower prices by overusing fertilizers or pesticides, these actions then go on to harm the environment, such as with fertilizer runoff creating massive dead zones at the mouth of the Mississippi River.

While NAFTA may arguably be somewhat beneficial for the economy as a whole, there are often a host of negative externalities that arise that simple economic measurements do not account for. Specifically, these types of free trade agreements create a race to the bottom where often the most environmentally destructive practices get rewarded as a result of free trade.

SOURCES
https://www.thebalance.com/history-of-nafta-3306272
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/11/24/what-weve-learned-from-nafta/under-nafta-mexico-suffered-and-the-united-states-felt-its-pain