America's Complicated Trade Relationship With Mexico

President Donald Trump has used the $60 billion trade deficit with Mexico to influence his decision in renegotiating NAFTA. WSJ's Gerald F. Seib explains the other factors that paint a complex picture of the relationship between the two countries. Photo: AP

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[gwynn.crumpsr]

This is such a big bunch of spin doctoring bull! A Mexican merchant in TiJuana told me that the largest dollar value good of Mexico i.e. Heche en Mexico labels for all of the imported goods that were "modified" before they were shipped to the USA as Mexican. I saw a plant owner who made peons of his workers by penalizing them if they did not work seven days a week making blue jeans. He had two nice looking "sisters" as wives, one with child one already a mother. Gifts sent to Mexico by a church in San Diego were assessed a tariff to be given to the needy. Yet, I had to buy Mexican Insurance to keep from having to spend time in jail if I had an accident even if the courts agreed that the other party was guilty. However, Mexican drivers were allowed to drive without insurance in San Diego and Chula Vista daily, even sometimes living in apartments so their kids could go to school there. Drugs were regularly carried across the border nightly by human mules to pickup points near Tecate and Brown Mountain. The drugs were usually in duffel bags similar to the army ones I used to have. Workers claiming to have Green cards came by trolley and auto daily to work without any interference. Their earnings were exported back to Mexico. A milk truck made regular trips from Mexico to the USA at the Tecate Crossing until a Regional supervisor of Customs wondered why Mexico with a shortage of milk was exporting milk, A subsequent search of the milk truck found the compartment for drug shipment but the driver suddenly disappeared. However, our noble manufacturers exported used equipment to factories in Mexico and listed its value as that of new to show how great an investment they were making and then sent repair parts at a big price. On the other hand, the slave labor Chinese motors finally impounded at Tecate were listed as very cheap, less costly than the cost of materials to build, because China was dumping them in the USA. Someone in Mexico dropped the ball and did not affix Heche en Mexico on the motors and their crates which had Chinese markings. JOB's lost in manufacturing have an employment multiplier of between 2 and 3. Marketing jobs have a multiplier of less than 1.5. I can not and will not sell tomatoes for what the Mexican and Central American serfs produce them for. I would be working for less than ten cents per hour. My labor should be established at what the minimum wage is, let the Cost of Living Index go up. We did abolish slavery and make it illegal to use prison labor products in commerce.
NAFTA and similar New World Order trade deals were primarily aimed at busting the wages of workers and clerical staff in the USA. We should also prohibit customer service call centers from operating from outside the USA for USA customers to show support for the antislavery and anti peonage laws of the land. Unsafe trucks from Mexico ofter are on the Interstates of the USA. Only if the equipment danger is obvious will the Highway Patrol pull them over. I will bet that the declared value of the engine made in Mexico will not list the cost of the parts sent to Mexico to be installed, but will only list the Value Added to the assembly. Our deficit with Mexico is not caused by oil imports. Mexico does not export any oil at this time. That is why they are finally allowing major US oil companies to take on operational interests in their dying oil fields.

Mexico has long had a policy of not trying to suppress or interfere with people jumping the fence or crawling thru tunnels from Mexico. One official said it was a Mexican's right to leave Mexico any way he wished. I have even seen taco stands set up next to the wall in TiJuana to sell food to the jumpers just before dark when the chances are better to make it. The TiJuana were there to make sure no disorder happened. It would hamper crossing.