Spacial inequalities in Mexico generated by the North America free trade agreement

Abstract

The coming into force of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) from 1994 consolidated a phase of Mexican economic liberalization that had begun in 1982. The systematic operationalization of the NAFTA in different sectors of the economy (incorporated into this commercial agreement) was also accompanied by favorable spatial impacts in some cases, and unfavorable impacts for a significant number of regions and states of the Mexican federation. Fourteen years on, this article analyzes the processes of spatial restructuring that have been generated, the regional disparities associated with the new international scenario, and explains the economic relations that run in opposition to the current stage of the dominant neoliberal model, which has excluded other traditional forms of organization and has kept many areas of Mexico in a condition of social marginalization.