Barack Obama, NAFTA and avocados 

December 8, 2008

The other day I ate one of those avocados from Michoacan, Mexico, that not long ago weren't available in states like Florida and California. But, thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), now we can buy Mexican avocados anywhere.
Avocados, along with bread, are my favorite thing to eat. And though I like those from California, and from Chile, there is something special about the flavor of these Michoacan avocados that I cannot find in others. Of course, it's a matter of taste.
Nonetheless, I wonder what is going to happen with these avocados -- and with many other products that Mexico exports to the United States -- when President-elect Barack Obama takes office on Jan. 20, 2009.
And I wonder about this because, if he fulfills his campaign promises, Obama could re-negotiate or even suspend NAFTA. That is what the then-presidential candidate told me about the three-nation accord in an interview in May.
"With respect to Mexico, when I talk about an issue like NAFTA, my concern has to do, not just with what is happening to U.S. workers, but also what is happening, for example, with Mexican farmers who have been completely cleaned out of their lands."
It is natural that with any free trade accord some workers will lose their jobs and others will gain them, but the goal is that in the end the benefits will be greater than the economic problems. Obama, though, suspects that NAFTA is not functioning well and he plans to revise it.
This, of course, worries the Mexican government.
"A revision of NAFTA would be harmful for Mexico's economy and harmful, too, for the U.S. economy," said Mexico's President Felipe Calderon during a visit to Peru, where he attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Forum.
And then he spoke about how NAFTA relates to the migration of Mexican workers to the north.
"Since the Mexican avocado has had access to the U.S. market, thanks to NAFTA," Calderon explained, "Michoacan -- the biggest avocado producing state -- has stopped being the state that sends the most workers migrating to the United States."
In other words, if the farmers who grow avocados in Michoacan become unemployed because the United States closes its market to the Mexican product, they will go to look for jobs, once again, in the north.
The question is who is going to win: Obama, who wants to revise NAFTA, or his two chief international advisers, Hillary Clinton, the new secretary of State, and Bill Richardson, the new secretary of Commerce, both of whom, during their electoral campaigns, refused to touch NAFTA.
There is no doubt that Richardson knows more about Mexico than Obama. The president-elect has never traveled south, while Richardson's mother is Mexican and he lived for many years in Mexico City. It's quite clear that NAFTA bothers Obama, but perhaps there are other factors that are more important to him.
Obama is also worried about the constant migration of Mexicans to the United States. They number more than half a million every year. And even though illegal crossings have decreased lately, there are many Mexicans who would rather weather the current economic crisis in the United States, earning dollars, instead of in Mexico, earning few -- and now devalued -- pesos.
Obama knows this is an economic matter.
"It's very important to reach out to the Mexican government -- in a way that I think this administration failed to do -- and to find out what do we need in the other side of the border to encourage economic development and job creation there."
The president-elect of the United States has the idea that if a Mexican has a good job in Mexico, he will not as easily take the risk of a hazardous trip to the north.
"As long as there is an economic magnet, and people can't succeed in supporting their families in Mexico, it is going to be almost impossible for us, over the long term, to deal with this immigration problem."
And this brings us back to the theme of the avocados.
It's true there are many things wrong with NAFTA. But closing the American market to Mexican avocados is not one of them.
The avocados from Michoacan create jobs in Mexico and that reduces the emigration of undocumented workers to the north.