I wrote the following letter to the Daily Texan in response to a Nov. 29 column. It doesn't look like they intend to print it, since they didn't even bother to reply to me.

NAFTA Mythology

In “Ignoring immigration retro-politics” (Nov. 29), Andrew Vickers makes the curious claim that “treaties and organizations such as NAFTA were a first step” in helping to improve “the lot of our neighbors in Mexico and Central America.” Improving their lot is important, he writes, “if we really want to prevent immigrants from coming into our country.”

Vicker’s claim has no basis in reality, however. Indeed, NAFTA and other free trade agreements are the primary forces compelling immigration from Mexico to the United States.

In 1994, NAFTA was crammed down the throats of the populations of the U.S., Canada, and especially Mexico, even though analyses by both the Office of Technology Assessment and the labor movement predicted it would harm the populations of all three countries. NAFTA’s underlying purpose was to cement U.S.-Mexico economic relations, on the assumption that U.S. corporations should exploit Mexican labor, material resources, and—crucially—markets. This is usually called “liberalizing trade,” although it has nothing to do with it.

In NAFTA’s first year, six million Mexican farmers were forced out of work because they couldn’t compete with government-subsidized corn and wheat flowing in to Mexican markets from the United States and Canada. And in 2008, as many as two million more farmers will be ruined by the full opening of Mexico’s borders to U.S. exports of corn, beans, and powdered milk, the last products to be liberalized under NAFTA. It’s worth noting that U.S. agriculture is heavily subsidized by tax dollars, a patent betrayal of the free market principles that NAFTA’s supporters routinely praise. 

The position these people are forced into drives many of them to immigrate to the United States, where vicious racists malign them. NAFTA and other free trade agreements and organizations should be dismantled, not lauded.

DC Tedrow
Journalism Graduate Student

Maybe it wasn't nice enough? Who knows. I actually called them to ask if I could write a short guest column in response, and they sort of laughed at me, suggesting I write them a letter, apparently without intent to publish it. A pretty slick way to derail people, I think. 

EDIT, 12/5/07: After several bounced emails, the letter finally ran in Firing Line section of the Dec. 4 issue of the Daily Texan. They messed with a word or two, which actually distorted the meaning slightly, but on the whole it appears as I submitted it. Go me.

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