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or can I understand how After so many years we are back at the starting point of 2016. It’s like Groundhog Day. The United States is preparing for the impact of the votes tomorrow, Tuesday, November 5. The contrasts between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are enormous, and there is much written about the impact that the election result could have in Mexico (read Pedro Miguel, EU: what awaits us
, The Day, 10/25/24).
Although both parties have toughened their immigration policies, Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant and xenophobic background and rhetoric are terrifying. My colleague from the IPS National Priorities Project, Alliyah Lusuegro, grew up in Chicago and says that until her adolescence she did not understand that she was undocumented; has written that “there is an image that has accompanied me for weeks: a sea of people holding ‘Mass Deportation Now’ signs at the Republican National Convention. Since then, I have had nightmares about massive army and police raids across the country. I see millions of families torn apart, including families with citizen children. And I see DACA recipients – like me – taken away from the only life we have ever known.” He explains that mass deportation is a key point of Project 2025, an extremist document written and supported by people close to Trump such as Stephen Miller, who was responsible for separating children from their parents during the Trump administration (see https://tinyurl.com/bde2sum7 own translation). So much uncertainty!
Moving on to another topic, but linked to human rights, what is certain is that the three North American countries are already preparing for the renegotiation of the T-MEC in 2026, and whoever wins the presidency of the United States there come on.
Despite Trump’s vociferous trade threats, during the six-year term of Andrés Manuel López Obrador we saw that on this issue the barking dog does not bite, at least not much. The country’s economy, subordinated to that of the United States, has been showered with investments from American companies, such as nearshoringas it is now fashionable to call the maquila, which also consists of the exploitation of Mexican labor. Although Trump promised the working class of his country to return assembly factories, mainly to the so-called rust beltwhich was stripped of hundreds of thousands of jobs since the entry of NAFTA, didn’t do anything to fix it
according to Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the country’s main union federation, in the article by Guardian Like a zombie: the US trade agreement (NAFTA/T-MEC) that still haunts Democrats
(own translation); which explains how the working class considered a betrayal
Clinton’s support for NAFTA, which helped Trump win in 2016 (https://tinyurl.com/y9wh4bxk).
Harris is expected to largely maintain the trade policies of the current Biden administration, emphasizing multilateralism, sustainability, tax incentives for domestic production and labor rights. Trump has continued repeating the same promises to American workers and threats with tariffs on Mexico, but Claudia Sheinbaum has reminded him that Mexico is the US’s main trading partner and that We are going to agree. They are in a campaign, obviously there is also greater stridency in one sense or another, but they know and we know that the agreement (T-MEC) is essential, within the framework of our sovereignty
.
talking about sovereignty
In 2026, Mexico must prioritize eliminating Annex 14-D, which continues to allow US companies to sue Mexico in courts such as the World Bank’s ICSID, since we are the fourth country with the most investor-state lawsuits (ISDS) in the world. Social and civil organizations also seek to elevate the rights of indigenous peoples, environmental protections, labor standards, and food sovereignty as stated in the document. Beyond NAFTA 2.0: Towards a progressive trade agenda for people and the planet (https://tinyurl.com/3aeunuaa).
This progressive and anti-neoliberal agenda cannot be built if only the private sector is consulted, as is usually the case with free trade agreements. Fair trade and democracy
said the sign that Claudia Sheinbaum held when she was studying at Berkeley in 1991, before Salinas de Gortari visited in the middle of the NAFTA negotiations. And democracy consists of the active participation of the social, popular, and civil sectors in matters that impact the country and their lives, and not only that of technocrats and businessmen.
The Trade with Justice Group of the Northumberland Chapter of the Council of Canadians civil society network recommended the Global Affairs Canada agency, which has already opened a consultation on the review of the USMCA in 2026, apart from improvements on topics such as those mentioned above, which should eliminate (from the T-MEC) article 20.1, of the rules and procedures and, in its place, insert appropriate wording that ensures that the T-MEC trade dispute panels in which the three member countries participate can request proposals of non-governmental organizations
(own translation).
In all commercial negotiations, the human rights of migrants must also be addressed, including their right to migrate, especially when the free trade
It has forced millions of people in Mexico, Central American countries and others to have to migrate given the violent territorial dispossession caused by investors from mining, hydroelectric projects, agroindustries, tourism and others. We will know in a few days what type of neighbor we will have to face in the future and the prospects of being able to improve the T-MEC in favor of human rights.
*Researcher at the Institute for Policy Studies (www.ips-dc.org). The opinions expressed here are of a personal nature.
