Abstract:

What explains Mexico's unfettered enthusiasm for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a policy that is the kingpin of President Carlos Salinas de Gortari's strategy of large-scale economic liberalization? Of the three signatories to this historic pact, Mexico's support is perhaps the most quixotic. Mexico's ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), which still formally controls the government and economic policy- making, acquired and maintained power over the decades largely through its strong nationalist rhetoric and protectionist policies. Through nation- alization of the oil industry in 1938, strict regulation of the U.S.-based automobile industry in the 1950s and 1960s, restriction of foreign invest- ment in 1973, and nationalization of the banking system in 1982, Mexico has fearlessly guarded its domestic industry and actively struggled for national autonomy. This is not to say that Mexico has shunned foreign- and particularly U.S.- capital, or that it has rejected all attempts at inter- national integration. The bracero program introduced in the 1960s and the maquiladora program developed in the 1970s and 1980s attest to Mexico's interest in international economic cooperation. Yet, Mexican pol- itics and economic policy have always been defined by a strong nationalist orientation and a clear reluctance to fully open its borders