Mexico’s Ex-Leader Defends Treaty

As president of Mexico from 1988 to 1994, Carlos Salinas de Gortari fought hard for the North American Free Trade Agreement. In a recent interview at his Mexico City home with Times staff writer Chris Kraul, Salinas discussed NAFTA and its impact.

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Question: How did you see NAFTA’s strategic objectives?

Answer: First, to create conditions to generate more jobs in Mexico for Mexicans. Second, to establish a new type of relation with the United States based on rules, certainty and procedures. I would say NAFTA as an instrument accomplished those objectives.... Mexican consumers pay lower prices for higher quality goods now. Workers who have jobs in industries geared to exports earn 50% more than workers in industries that are not.... There were important results but insufficient. Some thought NAFTA was an end in itself, but those who thought so were wrong.... Unfortunately, from 1995 on, reforms to make sure Mexico took advantage of NAFTA were left behind.

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Q. For example?

A. Reforms in competitiveness, labor reforms, financial reforms, education reforms and agricultural reforms. It was a big error to stop the reforms that Mexico needed.... Time was wasted, and now the long term has arrived. Mexico has lost competitiveness with China, and with others who continue making reforms, and now they are taking markets away from Mexico despite NAFTA.

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Q. Should you have negotiated harder for the U.S. and Canada to provide so-called social cohesion funds to improve the infrastructure in Mexico, as rich countries do for poor countries in the European Union?

A. Europe is in a process of economic, political, diplomatic and social integration, and here there is nothing more than commercial integration. In any case, there were no such funds.... You have to remember that when we negotiated NAFTA, the American government was broke.

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Q. Did you consider pushing for a migratory accord as part of NAFTA to allow for freer movement of Mexicans back and forth across the U.S. border?

A. I brought it up with President [George H.W.] Bush, and he told me that first we get the commercial treaty, then a migratory one. Two at the same time we could never have gotten from the American Congress. And I understood. They were in [a] recession, and you know that when there is a recession, protectionism rises.

A migratory accord should have been taken up after 1995 -- after the U.S. recovery began -- but again Mexico lacked decisiveness.... I think it is right that now President Fox has made such a treaty a priority. Unfortunately, the Sept. 11 tragedy and the [more recent] U.S. recession do not help such negotiations.

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Q. Despite expectations to the contrary, migration of undocumented Mexicans to the North continues as before.

A. Yes, because we had [an economic] crisis in 1995 and 1996, and we now have had three years of stagnation. Is it that NAFTA didn’t help? I would say the opposite -- that thanks to NAFTA it isn’t worse. Now it is the fashionable sport to blame NAFTA for everything. Farmers are in trouble -- it’s NAFTA’s fault. Lots of immigrants -- it’s NAFTA’s fault. We need to elevate the quality of debate, make it more informed and analytical.

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Q. Will a Free Trade Area of the Americas accord help or hurt Mexico?

A. Mexico is losing presence in the North American market. The problem is not whether there will be an FTAA; the problem is in Mexico’s low competitiveness.

More free trade would be positive and useful. The problem for Mexico lies inside, not outside.