NAFTA

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-- Random Penasco photo! -- The pool at night at the Peñasco Del Sol Hotel, April 2007.

The Nafta Trade Agreement between the countries of Canada, Mexico, and the United States is a long term, tri-national far reaching accord. Many of the tariff reducion/elimination measures do not go into effect until the period between the years 2000 & 2010.

Mexico has kept wages invitingly low, with stiff competition from China and is welcoming the hundreds of factories that have sprung up along its borders with the U.S. - these factories are known as maquiladoras, factories where components are shipped into Mexico duty-free, assembled, and re-exported.

Currently the Puerto Peñasco area is home to a few such factories. One imports sheet metal and other materials from Arizona allowing Mexican workers to fabricate heating/cooling sheetmetal products, and those products are in turn shipped back to Arizona and distributed in the United States.

By far the most active Nafta operations for Penasco are the shrimp-fish processing factories -- some owned and operated by Asian business groups. The prime export is to the lucrative markets of Japan and China.

While some U.S. forces and residents assert that NAFTA is negatively impacting the U.S. economy by taking jobs away from the American workforce, others insist this is not the case. Notable here is the "Trade is not a zero sum game where one country wins while another loses" concept quoted in the above link.

Other complaints have centered around the use of US highways by Mexican trucks under NAFTA-related trade. Such trucks are often criticized as being under-repaired and below American safety standards and therefore posing a hazard to the general public.

NAFTA links of interest:

Arizona Mexico Commission - Maquiladora Industry Assessment

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Defrente.puerto-penasco.com is a collaboration between De Frente newspaper and www.puerto-Penasco.com to bring you news and opinions - in English - from the Sonoran newspaper De Frente. You can read more at defrente.puerto-penasco.com

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