In September 1993 Mexicans were, it was said in high places, about to be liberated from their historic destiny: ‘So far from God, so close to the United States.’ The solution was simply to merge with the US and Canada in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), leaving the rest to take care of itself. Ciudad Juárez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, was on the front line of this radical advance, and I went there to take a look.
On the outskirts of the city giant metal boxes were laid out across the desert – maquila factories, their workers huddled around them in dusty shacks, making anything from car parts to potato crisps for transnational corporations. Duty- and tax-free, all the finished goods were dispatched ‘just-in-time’ across the Rio Grande to the US. This was what corporate globalization already meant for many Mexicans, and NAFTA promised to make it so for many more.
