MEXICO : Progress and Promise : America From Abroad : Mexicans Favor Trade Pact

A wide majority of Mexicans favor a free-trade agreement with the United States even though many fear it will make Mexico overly dependent on a neighbor they already view as wielding too much influence here, according to a Times Poll conducted for World Report.

Nearly half the Mexicans interviewed in the nationwide survey predicted that Americans would treat their country unfairly in business dealings, and many felt the U.S. would reap more of the benefits as falling trade barriers draw the two economies closer.

Despite such misgivings, 61% of those polled said they welcome the proposed treaty, compared to 15% opposing it. Most said free trade would bring better-quality goods and services along with badly needed jobs to Mexico, and half thought the expected relocation of U.S. businesses would discourage many Mexicans from looking for work in the United States.

The popular endorsement of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari’s free-trade initiative reflects not only his high approval rating after three years in office but also Mexico’s historic retreat from the banner of economic nationalism raised by nearly all of Salinas’ predecessors since the Mexican Revolution of 1910.

Trying to explain this shift, some Mexican analysts say the people have been swayed from inherently nationalist views by the Salinas hard sell on free trade. Others argue that Mexicans finally have a government that accepts the people’s willingness to engage more deeply with the country’s much-feared, much-admired northern neighbor.

“We’ve had a real change at the top on perceptions of the United States . . . and that’s had a real impact on the erosion of strong nationalism,” said Miguel Basanez, a political scientist who is president of Prospectiva Estrategia, the Mexican company that conducted the poll for The Times under the supervision of the Washington D.C.-based research firm of Belden & Russonello, Inc.

“To some extent, Mexicans are repeating the one-sided messages they’re hearing from the government and the (Mexican) media on free trade,” he added. “They have not had the benefit of an open discussion about the treaty’s benefits and drawbacks.”

Enrique Krauze, a Mexican historian, said the poll results echo the views of a populace that is “much less ideologically driven than the legend goes.”

“Economic nationalism has been one of the main themes of the Mexican Revolution, but it has never been a deep, sincerely felt attitude in the Mexican people,” he asserted. “Their expectations, their fears (about the trade agreement) are more pragmatic than ideological.”

Pollsters conducted face-to-face interviews with 1,546 Mexicans on a wide range of political and economic issues. The interviews took place in 189 communities between Sept. 11 and Oct. 2, and Times Poll director John Brennan, who oversaw the survey, said it had a margin of error of three percentage points in either direction.

The results revealed a broad range of attitudes toward the United States and highlighted Mexicans’ growing personal ties with that country.

Seventy-two percent said they have a good opinion of the United States, and 16% said they have a bad one. Their impression of American people is somewhat more negative--55% have good opinions and 29% have bad ones. President Bush got a 56% approval rating, compared to Salinas’ 83%.

Twenty-six percent said they have visited the United States, compared to 32% of those polled in a similar Times survey of Mexico two years ago. Fourteen percent of those interviewed this time said they have been to California.

Two in five claim family in the United States, and 7% said their households in Mexico get money from those relatives. Twenty-two percent consider it likely that they, or some family member, will cross the border to look for work in the next 12 months.

Asked what they like about the United States, many mentioned economic opportunities (23%), “the wealth of the country” (12%) and democracy (11%). Their leading dislikes were racial discrimination (23%), “too much drugs and crime” (19%) and a government that “tries to dominate other countries” (11%).

Mexicans’ admiration for their neighbor has long been tempered by the loss of half their national territory in the 1846-48 Mexican-American War and by the weight of U.S. economic and cultural influence.

President Porfirio Diaz, whose 34-year rule ushered in a tide of American investment and influence that rose too high for his own comfort, summed up his nation’s plight in a famous lament: “Poor Mexico! So far from God, so close to the United States.”

The revolution that toppled Diaz in 1910 seized American oil and industrial interests, launching a nationalist backlash of inward-looking development based on barriers to foreign imports and investment. Relations between Washington and Mexico City often flared into antagonism, with Mexican leaders railing against U.S. policies toward Central America and Cuba.

According to a Times poll in greater Mexico City in 1979, near the end of that era, 81% thought the United States had “more influence over Mexico than it should.”

That perception seems to have eroded after six years of efforts by Salinas and his predecessor as president, Miguel de la Madrid, to reopen Mexico’s economy to the world and smooth over its disputes with U.S. administrations.

According to the latest Times poll, concern over American influence, while still high, has declined. Nationwide, 48% said it is “too much,” while 10% said “not enough” and 29% said “the right amount.” In Mexico City, 57% said the United States wields too much influence. But at the same time, 58% of all those polled said relations between the two countries are improving. Just about one in 10 (9%) think they are getting worse.

A sharp decline in the Mexican economy during the last decade may have made Mexicans somewhat more receptive to greater U.S. involvement. Sixty percent characterized the economy today as weak.

Commenting on the decline of Mexican nationalism disclosed in a poll earlier this year, the respected Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes said: “We are living a national failure side by side with modernity’s biggest success story--the democratic, powerful, rich and free North American empire.”

The Times poll asked whether Mexico should “encourage more foreign investment in order to help the economy” or “restrict it in order to preserve economic independence.”

Half said investment should be encouraged, and 32% said it should be restricted.

That same question in the 1989 Times poll got a similar result: 53% wanted to encourage investment and 30% wanted to restrict it--an indication of a favorable climate for free trade before Salinas first proposed the treaty in mid 1990.

The treaty would accelerate Mexico’s move toward free trade and assure its continuity. It would set a timetable, now being negotiated by the United States and Mexico, for eliminating tariffs and other barriers to commerce across their border.

Expected to be completed in the next year or two, the treaty would make cheaply produced Mexican goods, such as broccoli and automobile engines, more competitive in the United States and thus attractive to job-creating investment from both countries. It would also hurt less-competitive Mexican products, such as bicycles, which have enjoyed protection, by easing the entry of quality American-made bikes.

Although ratification of the treaty is assured in the Mexican Senate, the government has waged an all-out campaign to sell the Mexican people on its benefits, seeking to generate business confidence at home and stimulate the domestic economy before free trade takes effect.

The poll showed that 24% of all Mexicans still don’t know enough about the treaty to judge it. Public awareness here is higher than in the United States, where a Times poll last month showed 55% of the American people to be unsure or unaware of the free-trade proposal. Twenty-nine percent of Americans favored it while 16% expressed opposition.

Other Mexican responses indicated a degree of indifference. Forty-seven percent said they are paying little or no attention to news about free trade and 34% doubt it would have a direct impact on people like themselves.

The wide margin of support for free trade was based more on a perception that the economy as a whole will benefit. Seventy-seven percent said the treaty would generate more jobs for Mexicans, and 68% said it would bring “more and better goods and services.” Half said that if U.S. companies locate in Mexico and pay Mexican-scale wages, far fewer Mexicans will leave to seek jobs in the United States.

But just a third of the treaty’s supporters said they are “totally in favor” of it while the rest are “somewhat in favor.”

Majority backing for the treaty came from all social classes, occupations and regions of the country. But it was most popular among the well-to-do (83% in favor, 9% opposed) and middle-income groups (67% to 15%) than among the poor (51% to 17%).

Support was greater in northern Mexico than in other regions and greater among managers and merchants than among blue-collar workers and farmers.

Asked which country would benefit most from the agreement, 43% named the United States and 21% named Mexico. Twenty-three percent said both would benefit equally and, in response to a separate question, 48% said the pact would be “good for Mexico,” against 18% who said it would hurt.

Mexican critics of free trade argue that tying their country too closely to the United States would threaten Mexico’s political independence, make its economy more vulnerable to U.S. recessions and set back its efforts to become self-sufficient in basic foods.

The poll results echo nationalist concerns. Sixty-two percent predicted that free trade will make Mexico “too dependent economically on the United States.” And 49% said they have little or no confidence that Americans “will deal fairly with Mexicans in business.”

But those misgivings proved less decisive than bread-and-butter issues in determining attitudes toward the treaty. For example, the treaty was supported by 64% of those who foresee greater dependence on the United States but by only 29% of those who doubted that it would create more jobs.

The contrasting views emerging from the survey look clearer through the eyes of Lourdes Coaray, a 30-year-old Mexico City teacher who was queried by the pollsters and agreed to a follow-up interview by a Times reporter.

Coaray has a negative image of Americans dating from the time a few years ago when she was principal of a grammar school in Puerto Vallarta, a booming resort town on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Rude children of well-to-do American residents ridiculed their Mexican teachers, she said, and one pupil called her a “mental retard” to her face.

As an educator, Coaray is concerned about what she calls excessive American influence here and Mexicans’ inclination to mix English words into their language. “The clash of cultures is very difficult,” she said. “There’s a danger of losing our identity, our values, our customs. . . .

“Mexico is too dependent on the United States because we lack our own technology. With the free-trade agreement, I think we are going to fall into deeper dependence but, well, not everything can be the color of roses. One has to give up some things in order to get other things that are good, right?

“The greater benefit (from the treaty) will be for the United States because Mexico has a lot of cheap labor and, from what I understand, the United States needs it. If there weren’t some benefit, the United States wouldn’t be interested in having this treaty. But of course, Mexico is going to benefit too.”

What she expects to gain is better pay for her husband, who earns $1,300 a month--high by Mexican standards--as an engineer for a private company. U.S. competition, she believes, will force Mexican companies to produce higher-quality goods, and to do this they will have to offer higher salaries to skilled technicians. As a bonus, the clothes and household appliances she buys won’t wear out in months, as they do now.

“It will put an end to rip-offs,” she said.

Some Mexican economists worry that such expectations, based to a large extent on government oversell, are unjustified. They note that Mexico’s trade barriers have fallen dramatically since the mid-1980s and predict that any improvement in the level of employment and quality of goods will be marginal. Salinas may be risking a backlash, they say, by inflating the hopes of his compatriots.

“If this treaty doesn’t work as they say it will,” Coaray warned, “it could be very dangerous. The Mexican people are not very passive.”

* ABOUT THIS SECTION

The principal writers for this special report on Mexico were Marjorie Miller and Juanita Darling of The Times’ Mexico City Bureau, and Richard Boudreaux of The Times’ Managua Bureau. Don Bartletti, of The Times’ San Diego Edition, took the photographs.