Economics

La verdad sobre el TLCAN

Apr 4, 2017 Laura Tyson

BERKELEY – Mientras el presidente estadounidense Donald Trump recibe ofertas para construir su supuesto "hermoso muro" a lo largo de la frontera con México, su administración también se dispone a construir algunos muros figurativos con su vecino del sur, renegociando el Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte. Antes de que los funcionarios estadounidenses den más pasos, harían bien en reconocer algunos hechos básicos.

Trump ha calificado al TLCAN como el "peor acuerdo de comercio" jamás aprobado por los Estados Unidos, alegando que ha generado "terribles pérdidas" de empleos y producción manufacturera. Sin embargo, nada de eso se basa en la evidencia. Incluso los escépticos del TLCAN han llegado a la conclusión de que sus efectos negativos sobre el empleo neto de la industria manufacturera en los Estados Unidos han sido pequeños o inexistentes.

Trump puede preferir no centrarse en hechos, pero es útil comenzar con unos pocos. El comercio bilateral entre EE.UU. y México asciende a más de $ 500 mil millones por año. Estados Unidos es, con mucho, el mayor socio comercial de México en materia de mercaderías, mientras que México es su tercer mayor socio comercial (después de Canadá y China).

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 16 Comments on this article

Hector Miguel Padilla Apr 11, 2017

Nafta was structured to increase trilateral commerce, but did not articulate a long term vision and strategy in the World Trade, thus in the period 2000-2015, its market share as a block of the World Trade, came down from 19.2% to 13.4%, which means a 43% decline. Now, we have to actualize Nafta, and set a Vision with a strategy to recover and advance in World Trade participation.
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Gerald Silverberg Apr 11, 2017

While the full value of the assembled car is attributed to Mexico, the foreign components do show up in Mexico's imports, and thus are already reflected in its trade balance. The problem is that many of these imports are not from the US, but from Asia or Europe, but still benefit from NAFTA.
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lirain urreiztieta Apr 10, 2017

Ms Tyson seems to know little about what reality looks like in Mexico, and is basing her pronouncements from the heart of liberal ideology. Not once does she mention the decline of the Mexican Peso over the more than 20 years of the passing of Nafta, which has left by the wayside the hopes of millions of Mexicans hoping to participate in the joys of trade with a rich neighbor. Wealthy Mexicans purchase Audis, BMWs and Benzes all day long, while those with lesser means buy Fords and Toyotas. Tyson ignores the current political sentiment that will most likely elect a far left populist (whose prior election attempts were partially funded by Chavez laundered dollars), and prefers to lead readers to suspect that the uncertainty over Nafta will "aide the rise in right-wing populists", how wrong can you get. About the only worthwhile point made is that Rules of Origin need to be re-worked, as they have definitely led to the invasion of Chinese, Korean and other eastern nations who dump their inputs into the huge Nafta market.
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Steve Fuller Apr 10, 2017

With the advent of NAFTA corporate America found a way to outsource manufacturing to Mexico, a way to get free from environmental regulations, labor standards, safety standards and from unions. The rules in NAFTA concerning the enviroment were weaker than U.S. standards & the rules set forth in NAFTA were basically toothless. Economists constantly say that NAFTA did not cost jobs; from my perspective it was the factories that went south and the jobs went with the factories. True automation would have eliminated jobs, but NAFTA made it the cheapest place to make the widgets, assemble the trucks, using cheaper labor, lax regulations, and no import taxes. While those are good enough reasons to renegotiate the trade deal the Investor State Dispute resolution system should be a deal breaker all by itself. The whole system undermines the sovereignty of local, state and even federal regulation if it were to effect possible profits. NAFTA should be renegotiated, the good parts kept, the regulations stiffened, the bad parts discarded.
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Nathan Davis Apr 9, 2017

The author's point about trade figures is important since it is often left out of the data in policy discussions. Although it can be seen in the data in terms of imports and exports (https://elhem.co/2017/03/06/trade-visualization-mexico-2015/).
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eusebio manuel Apr 9, 2017

The effect has been horrible for Americans and Mexicans Great for the fat cats I doubt Trump has the stones or brains to do much about it.
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Drake Wauters Apr 9, 2017

Great article but both nations need to reconnect and stabilize whole classes of people who are disenfranchised. The US and Mexico have much to learn from one another but Columbia's internal peace process is probably a good example even if not perfect. Pretending everything is okay is fake news incarnate.
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B Wilds Apr 8, 2017

Trade policy has massive long-term ramifications on the strength of a nation's economy. Often people fail to note the difference between free and fair trade. In many ways, the global economy has become an ill-regulated business model tilted to favor big business and giant conglomerates. We should not lose sight of the fact that while free trade is important, fair trade is far more so and should be the main issue.

Developing a long-term sustainable economic system that is balanced would contribute to both global cohesion and the world economy. The article below is in response to a slew of comments from my recent article titled, "Higher Prices On Import Goods A Fair Cost For Jobs". Today many people supporting past trade agreements mistakenly use low consumer prices as a battle flag around which to rally.

http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2017/02/free-trade-and-fair-trade-are.html
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William Ryan Apr 6, 2017

Steve Edwards you are right. So was Ross Perot and Trump is right about the social ramifications. But technically Laura Tyson is right in that it took 30 years to build these global supply chains of capital ownership and that is not going to be easily changed. The web of oligarch capitalism is so large and entrenched that it is most likely not ever going to be undone or drastically changed. We must all work smarter to get better outcomes from China and other trade surplus countries. I hope that Trump will carefully think things through with his administration as he says he will to get the most bang for the buck for our country in these new trade deals because we need good jobs in America too. Trade cannot be a one way street. It must be mutually beneficial to where competitive advantages are made fair to both trading countries.
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Petey Bee Apr 5, 2017

re: value added vs trade deficit figures- alas, this has no bearing on the issue of jobs, or distributional issues which continued to worsen after NAFTA (but may not have been caused by it).
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Gary Stegen Apr 5, 2017

This is one of the few articles I have read on this topic that actually makes a lot of sense. Trump is correct that the huge persistent trade imbalances damage the US economy, jobs, and national security, and that strong actions are needed to reduce the US trade deficit. However, NAFTA is not the primary problem; rather, countries that persistently run large current account surpluses are the problem. Some improvements to NAFTA should be pursued, such as increasing the North America content requirement mentioned in the articles; however, Trump should primarily focus on reducing the big imbalances caused by the persistent surplus countries: China and Germany are the biggest offenders, followed by a number of others such as Singapore, S Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Netherlands, Maylasia, etc.
- Steve Hurst Apr 5, 2017
  
  Gary
  
  Trump cannot deal with Germany because it is locked deep within the Eurozone structure. The Eurozone has to fail first, It is unlikely Trump will assist the destruction of the Eurozone due to the questions about the instability that would bring to Europe. That mainly leaves China. Good Luck with that. BTW Japan and China both hold 1 trillion USD of US debt
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Steve Hurst Apr 4, 2017

Trumps gonna build a Wall - Get over it
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PEDRO CASAS ALATRISTE Apr 4, 2017

... and the strongest candidate till today es a left-wing populist.
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PEDRO CASAS ALATRISTE Apr 4, 2017

There is no re-election in Mexico. By 2018 there will be presidential elections but President Peña Nieto will not be competing.
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stephan Edwards Apr 4, 2017

Professor Holmes the problem is the benefits of NAFTA have gone to the few. The owners of capital pretty much. For those of us who must labor to pay our bills instead of cashing dividend it has been a disaster!!!! GDP is completely and utterly irrelevant if a LARGE majority feels they are losers and THEY DO! Nothing like watching Management pack up the whole production line and ship to Mexico so they can pay 3 dollars a day and get a tax write off to earn Mexico the undying hatred of the people whose jobs were shipped off. Nothing like here is 2 weeks pay so long. Retraining oh sorry that's your problem and your unemployment runs out in 3 months. You can talk GDP all you want the fact remains a large and increasing number of VOTERS believe NAFTA is a zero sum game for people who must work instead of sit in an Ivory tower. You and the rest of the economists look a GDP growth which is going to the top 1 - 2 % and the number of jobs never mind the fact the jobs pay considerable less then the jobs the companies got tax breaks to ship to Mexico. Either the facts must change read shipping decent paying jobs to the 3rd world and replacing them with Walmart and Mcdonalds must stop. Or you must convince the very very large number of losers it is actually a good thing for them. I don't think even Joseph Goebbels could pull that off. And if the facts or the perception don't change this country is going to elect someone who makes Trump look like a moderate.
Why is it Economist forget GDP is irrelevant to the working class paychecks are what matters to them?? You know the paychecks that have gone nowhere since NAFTA was signed while executive compensation and profits have sky rocketed. NAFTA may have someone but not the majority of voters.
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