The Uncertain Connection: Free Trade and Rural Mexican Migration to the United States

Will a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) decrease Mexican migration to the United States, as the U.S. and Mexican governments assert, or increase migration beyond the movement that would otherwise occur, as NAFTA critics allege? This article argues that it is easy to overestimate the additional emigration from rural Mexico owing to NAFTA-related economic restructuring in Mexico. The available evidence suggests four major reasons why Mexican emigration may not increase massively, despite extensive restructuring and displacement from traditional agriculture. First, many rural dwellers in Mexico already have diversified their sources of income, making them less dependent on income earned from producing agricultural commodities like corn that will be most affected by NAFTA. Second, a free trade zone might induce more U.S. agricultural producers to expand in Mexico during the 1990s, creating additional jobs there instead of in the United States. Third, the links between internal migration in Mexico and emigration from Mexico are not as direct as is often assumed; even if economic restructuring increases internal population movements in Mexico, this may not translate into a great deal of international emigration. Finally, European experience teaches that free trade and economic integration can be phased-in in a manner which does not produce significant emigration, even under a freedom of movement regime. NAFTA-related economic displacement in Mexico may yield an initial wave of migration to test the U.S. labor market, but this migration should soon diminish if the jobs that these migrants seek shift to Mexico.