I want to repeal the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to bring home all the factories and jobs that were sucked down to Mexico. But it might also be a good way to defuse the Mexican drug wars.
The day that NAFTA went into effect, January 1, 1994, the Zapatista Army launched its revolution on the Mexican government in Chiapas. It didn’t take the Mexican army very long to defeat the Zapatistas, but that wasn’t the end of it because the Zapatista were right.
The Zapatistas knew that NAFTA would allow American agricultural exports to flood the country and wipe out Mexico’s small farmers. And so they did.
What did those betrayed farmers do? Many became NAFTA refugees and flooded into the USA, but some turned to growing alternative crops. Drug crops.
Today, Mexico is the #2 producer of opium in the world after Afghanistan, and is wracked with drug violence.
When the British repealed their Corn Laws, and wiped out their farmers, they had a plan. They had factories ready to exploit the new source of cheap, desperate labor. Sure, it was an evil plan, but it was better than no plan at all.
Thanks to NAFTA, Mexico now has chaos, and we have 46.2 million people on food stamps.
Another “triumph” of libertarian ideology.
