Revisiting NAFTA: Reality for Mexico’s Small Corn Farmers

Abstract: As part of its attempt to modernize the economy and encourage private investment, the Mexican government under President Salinas de Gortari negotiated provisions in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that were designed to ease Mexico’s corn sector into free trade with the United States. Most of these provisions and promises of domestic reform were not implemented or carried out to their full potential, leading to a wide gap between how experts publicly predicted small-scale corn farmers would adjust to trade liberalization and how they actually have. These discrepancies have had harmful effects on areas ranging from the environment to income equality to Foreign Direct Investment.