The Trump Administration has announced an agreement on Aug. 27,2018, on some issues of trade between the U.S. and Mexico. At present this is not a significant trade agreement. It is not a new NAFTA. It is the old NAFTA with a few new agreements and a new name. Trump calls the new partial agreement the U.S.- Mexico Trade Agreement. There has been no progress on the environment, on labor rights, on special international tribunals for dispute resolution, nor on migration. Without resolution on these issues, the Trump claim is merely fake news.
Why should trade deals include migration ?
Since 1994 trade agreements have led to the massive increase of trade across our borders. Imports and capital have moved freely in both directions. At the same time the movement of workers has been severely restricted and the border enforcement police have grown from 5,000 to 20,000 and continue to grow. Relatively free trade for goods and capital while restricting movement of workers and thus their ability to organize to protect their own interests has produced additional poverty, crises, and inequality in each society.
We are currently experiencing a major restructuring of the global economy directed by the transnational corporations to produce profits for their corporate owners. The impoverishment of the vast majority of people in pursuit of profits for a small minority has pushed millions to migrant in search of food, jobs, and security. Global capitalism produces global migration. Along with wars, NAFTA and other “Free Trade” deals each produce new waves of migration. When workers faced with impoverishment and starvation of their families try to move looking for work, they are persecuted, arrested, and often deported.
In spite of the economic boon for the wealthy, working people in the U.S. have yet to receive a significant improvement in their standard of living for over 30 years. At the same time, democratic forces are once again confronted with anti immigrant campaigns- this time fostered and promoted by a President of the U.S.
As socialists, we stand with and among the US working class in opposition to the rule of the transnational corporations and their exploitation of the economy and their despoliation of our lives, our society and our environment.
Socialists support the rights of working people to organize, to form unions, and to protect their rights and to advance their interests. Unions have always been an important part of how socialists seek to make our economic justice principles come alive. Working people- gathered together and exploited in the capitalist workplace-are well positioned to fight their common exploitation.
Current immigration laws and practices, imposed upon us all by the corporations and their control of our government, often prevent working class unity by dividing workers against each other and by creating categories of workers with few rights to organize and thus to protect their own interests.
The neoliberal capitalist economic system now being advanced by the relentless merging of the world's markets also impoverishes the majority of U.S. workers. The average U.S. worker has experienced a decline in their real wages since 1979. Quality industrial jobs have moved to low wage, anti union areas in the U.S. and to Mexico, China, Singapore, Vietnam, India and other nations. At present the U.S. has no significant controls on capital flight. Indeed, the US government subsidizes some corporations to move jobs to Honduras, El Salvador, and the Caribbean.
