Environmental Purists May Be Mexico’s Curse : Free trade: An agreement doesn’t stand a chance if we demand that our neighbor burden itself further to meet U.S. pollution standards.

The proposal for a free-trade agreement between the United States and Mexico holds out real hope for a higher standard of living for the 85 million poorest people in North America. But environmental extremists are rallying to block the proposal.

If they get their way, there will be no agreement unless Mexico adopts the same environmental standards as the United States. And some environmental groups go so far as insisting that Mexican products should enter the U.S. market only if they are produced in an environmentally correct factory.

These environmental purists are not just complaining that new Mexican factories might create pollution that could cross the border into the United States--a legitimate problem that should be addressed. But the environmentalists who want to scuttle the free-trade agreement object just as strongly to any additional pollution occurring wholly inside Mexico.

There’s no denying that many areas of Mexico suffer from serious pollution. Mexico City itself has one of the worst air-quality standards of any major city in the world, yet it continues to attract increasing number of Mexican migrants looking for better jobs.

Is it fair to ask a poor country like Mexico to take on the costly burden of reducing pollution before it has met the basic needs of its population? The average income in Mexico is only one-tenth that of the United States’. Mexico’s unemployment rate is three times as high as ours. And their infant mortality rate is nearly four times as high.

Controlling pollution and cleaning up the environment to meet U.S. standards would use scarce Mexican capital that would otherwise be available to create new and better jobs. And imposing costly environmental standards would raise the cost of production in Mexico to the point where Mexican products would be too expensive to compete in the U.S. market and where U.S. firms would find it too expensive to produce in Mexico.

Is it fair to force Mexico to satisfy the environmental standards that the United States undertook to meet only after achieving the highest standard of living in the world? Mexicans and their government should be allowed to strike their own balance between a cleaner environment and the other things they so desperately need to raise their standard of living.

The people of Mexico make it clear that their priority is for more of the things that can be bought by increased industrialization, and that a U.S.-quality environment is too much of a luxury at this stage of their development.

Mexican preferences will certainly change over time. As their incomes rise, Mexicans will be willing to pay to improve their environment and to impose restrictions that reduce pollution. For now, it is senseless to insist that the poor of Mexico sacrifice their economic growth and give up the chance to improve their basic standard of food, clothing and shelter in order to achieve a more perfect environment.

Emotional arguments of environmental purists are a real threat to the free-trade agreement because they are being echoed and magnified by the spokesmen of organized labor, who also add their own demands that Mexican factories meet U.S. standards of occupational safety and health. That too would raise costs of production in Mexico and undermine the chance for increasing Mexican wages and employment.

Although U.S. labor unions are predictably concerned about the potential inflow of Mexican products and the “loss of jobs” from the United States to Mexico, those concerns are largely misplaced. Mexico accounts for less than 10% of total U.S. imports, and we export as much back to Mexico. Even with a free-trade agreement, imports would remain relatively modest; the increase in imports would be balanced by a rise in U.S. exports. American workers would benefit from the increased supply of lower-cost Mexican products and from increased U.S. sales to Mexico.

Let’s hope that the labor unions and their friends in Congress recognize that a free-trade agreement would provide Americans with better opportunities for work and consumption while giving our Mexican neighbors a chance at a better future. The environmental extremists should not have their way.