Trendevents: NAFTA is no Bargain

Clyde Wilson

1993

Published in:

Social Trends Newsletter Oct 1993, No. 118

The spin doctors, the lobbyists, the politicians and who's who in the financial and megacorporation world are beating the media drums to let the American people know what a great opportunity the North America Free Trade Agreement will be for the United States, Canada and Mexico.

While all kinds of arguments have been presented as to the advantages of a common market for the North American Continent, there has not been a comprehensive impact report as to what effect the implementation would have on the environment, the resource base and the infrastructural changes that will be necessary under NAFTA.

In general terms, the report mentions the fact that more trade will mean that more raw materials and goods will be transported around the world and will result in the use of more energy and cause more pollution. For instance, the transporting of 4 billion tons of freight sent world-wide in 1991 required 8.1 exajoules of energy, which is as much energy used by the entire economies of Brazil and Turkey. It should be worth mentioning that with the European community trade agreement, the crossing of their borders by truck traffic will increase the air pollution by 30 to 50 percent during 1993. Other vehicles, boat and airplane traffic will add to the pollution factor and the consumption of more energy and other irreplaceable resources.

What will the impact be on the North American Continent if NAFTA is implemented? Cross-border trucking between the United States and Mexico has doubled in the last five years, reaching at least 1.8 million crossings per year. The U.S. government predicts that when NAFTA comes on line there will be 12 million trucks crossing the borders of the U.S. and Mexico--nearly seven times the present volume by the end of the decade. This would mean greater trafficcongestion, increased fuel consumption, air pollution and carbon emissions, and more vehicle accidents involving trucks carrying inflammable and hazardous cargos.

The Worldwatch paper refers to a study by Princeton University economists, Gene Grossman and Alan Krueger, who found out in their research that the volume of trade and investmentliberalization envisioned under NAFTA would increase annual toxic emissions into the air, water and land--from all industrial sources-- by 10.5 million pounds in Mexico, 13 million pounds in theU.S., and 8 million pounds in Canada.

The United States operates under an economic system that must have expansion, growth and investments to survive. Lacking a viable distribution system, it must create artificial scarcity or find another country, or somewhere to dumpits surpluses to keep the system going. When calculating the Gross Domestic Product, the amount in dollars of all goods and services produced in the U.S., the cost to the nation in environmental degradation and damage, the depletion and exploitation of the country's resource reserves, the overall damage to the infrastructure and the health of the nation and its people are never included in the total cost for obvious reasons. NAFTA would only compound the myriad of unsolved problems that already exist from operating under a financial and monetary structure. It is doubtful that the power brokers and the megacorporate elite will ever come up with any idea or plan for the coordination and mobilization of the continent's resources and technology for the purpose of meeting the physical requirements of the social and industrial mechanism and the welfare of the people.