Moving Parts: Trade Politics in High-Skill Manufacturing from CT to Guanajuato, 1994–2018

Abstract

Criticism of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) by pro-labor

politicians and worker unions in both the United States and Mexico has been

long-standing, stretching from before the deal’s inception in 1994 through

well after the switch to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in 2020.

The division between corporate interests and worker interests is equally estab-

lished. Yet, the contemporary animosity between U.S. and Mexican workers as

a mainstream attitude is a more recent development, stoked by former Presi-

dent Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric.1 To better understand the origins

of such animosity and its link to trade policy, a discussion of early disputes

over NAFTA within the U.S. Senate is warranted. The dialogue that took place

between proponents and opponents of the treaty sheds light on the diamet-

rically conflicting analyses of trade and labor history during this watershed

moment in the 1990s.