U.S.-Mexico Pact Poses Problems for Economy

The Los Angeles Times should not serve as a willing conduit for Bush-sponsored misleading half-truths about free trade.

The truth is that about 90% of (U.S. exports to Mexico) are capital equipment and components going to U.S.-owned maquiladoras to be assembled into finished products which will be imported back into the United States duty free.

This is a Reagan/Bush betrayal of the working middle class, which has lost a million jobs to those thousands of maquiladoras. This huge loss of factory jobs and the prospect for even greater job losses is the real reason this economy cannot come out of this unprecedented triple-dip recession.

Mexico may be a potentially big market for U.S. goods, but it is impoverished by overpopulation and does not have any money or anything to trade for imports, other than what it yields from the jobs Ronnie and George forcibly took away from us and gave to their maquiladoras.

To facilitate their grand plan to move our industry to Mexico, they have used taxpayer-backed loans and the debilitating effects of condoned dumping by the Japanese.

The best assessment of this conspiracy against the working people of the United States is that made by Gov. Bill Clinton: “From everything we read the treaty has a whole lot of things in it for people who want to invest money and nothing for labor practices nor for the environment.”

FRANK SMERKE

Santa Monica