José Manuel Suárez Mier**
The Mexican government is about to learn of the enormous cost that the serious concessions granted by its negotiator will entail. He agreed to these terms rushed to finalize one of the worst trade agreements in history, in which it capitulated the sovereignty of the country on several fronts.
For the time being, what will come in a few days is the labor lawsuit promoted by the main US union federation, the AFL-CIO, a long-time enemy of free trade, with the “rapid response” mechanism that Seade accepted, against companies in the automotive industry in Mexico.
It turns out that a rowdy social agitator, a notorious ill-famed lawyer, traveled 1,300 kilometers to organize a general strike in all the maquiladoras in another border city threatening the workers, resulting in violations of the law that landed her in prison.
According to the plaintiffs, what happened constituted a serious violation of the right to “free organization” of the Mexican workers of the Tridomex company, which closed its plant in Philadelphia, laying off 1,300 workers, which caused the anger of the unions in the United States. And the Biden government demanded that Mexico review the “union taxation” in a GM plant with the same procedure, within a peremptory period of one month.
The worst thing that Seade gave was the right to intervene in Mexico “to ensure that its laws are complied with,” without granting the same power for Mexico to prosecute the many cases of abuse that are committed in the US, especially to the detriment of people of Mexican origin, of what the fledgling ambassador Moctezuma, who accused the United States of violating its laws in meatpacking plants, has not found out, so what?
Something that will aggravate this is that Thea Lee is the new Undersecretary of Labor for International Affairs, where I am certain that she will do everything to speed up the largest number of labor lawsuits against Mexico, which she hates because she was defeated when the NAFTA was approved, which she fought fiercely for three decades.
I had known Thea since that time, when we had numerous debates and she said, not to be opposed to free trade, but to exclude workers’ rights, environmental protection, public safety, and a broad agenda with nothing to do with trade.
Thea is close to the new White House Trade Representative, Katherine Tai, in charge of US trade negotiations, who worked hard as a staffer on Capitol Hill to ensure that the USMCA includes the unilateral chapter on labor rights in which her country decides if they are complied with or not.
This agreement replaces the far superior NAFTA, which did encourage free trade and did not empower the US without reciprocity. It is also a trade deal administered by bureaucrats, with the right to set wages, judge which unions are acceptable, and determine when Mexican laws are violated.
What is the punishment for Polko Seade for the genuflecting subjugation of Mexico to its powerful neighbor, who will now dictate what to do, how to do it, and if it is doing it according to the wishes of its unions? Appointing him Mexico’s ambassador to China because his family already lives there.
Amazing!
*Polko is the term coined during the US invasion of Mexico in 1847 to label the traitors who rose against their government, wanting the US to annex the entire country.
**Consultant in economics and strategy in Washington DC and professor at universities in Mexico and the US. Email: aquelarre.economico@gmail.com
This column is also published in Spanish on May 13, 2021, in the Excélsior newspaper, based in México City.