Poor Mexican corn farmers now have to compete in their own country with highly subsidized American corn. The US imposes many, many agricultural subsidies for its own farmers but does not allow Mexico to countervail by imposing duties on US imports to offset US subsidies. When Mexico tomato exports to the US began to increase in 1996, Florida tomato growers pressured Congress and the Clinton administration to do something about it. The US accused Mexico of "dumping" (selling products below cost) and threatened lawsuits. Mexico didn't want to risk a trial so they agreed to raise its price on tomatoes so that Flordia could compete with Mexico which resulted in less tomatoes being sold from Mexico at the expense of both Mexican farmers and US consumers. The result is that Mexicans would rather illegally cross the border into the US and work for the "federally mandated farmworker wage" at about $5.00 per hour (if that) (state min wages don't apply to farm workers in the US - another unfair subsidy for farmers) than work for their own country which cannot afford subsidies. You can't get rid of crime, boost salaries, and so forth without infrastructure. However, without infrastructure, technology, roads, and other freedoms that define a fair economy you MIGHT need a union....Unions take money OUT of the economy by forcing people to pay for services that they could easily achieve in a court of law- even without a lawyer- or you could hire a union instead- and- yeah- unions have made achievements for US workers- but independents could have achieved those same benefits in a court of law too- and without forcing future workers to pay for that service either- because that is bs to force future workers to pay for historical freedoms that were granted on the basis of justice. Martin Luther King isn't charging Blacks for their freedoms so why in the world should unions be charging workers for "getting a break"????? I'm claiming BS on that one.

What Mexico needs is better education, political stability, roads, internet, phones, investment in technology, and fewer NAFTA situations like this: When a village in the north-central Mexican state of San Luis Potosi tried to force Metaclad, a US waste disposal company, to close a toxic waste site that was contaminating the local water supply, the Mexican government was forced to pay $16.7 million in compensation, under Chapter 11 of NAFTA which was an anti-environmentalist provision that mandated compensation for "loss trade" that resulted from closing the Metaclad facility in Mexico.