Annotations for Places: Mexico--mexicali

This morning it was my great honor to welcome seven outstanding Central American leaders to the White House, President Cristiani of El Salvador, President Endara of Panama, President…

In a historic gathering, president Clinton met recently with the heads of all of the Central American countries. President Clinton released $40 million in aid to Nicaragua and said he was committed to expanding free trade throughout Latin America. He's calling for a study to see how the North American Free Trade Agreement could be expanded to include other countries in the hemisphere. Along the US Mexico border, many businesses are already gearing up to take advantage of NAFTA. As Ancel Martinez reports from the border communities of Mexicali and Calexico.

Dozens of maquiladora workers solder at workstations and weld electrical transformers at the Emerson Electric Company in Mexicali, the capital Baja California. Owned by a worldwide corporation based in St. Louis, Emerson Electric employs Mexican workers and exports the finished products back to the United States. Simon Diaz, president of Emerson Mexico says NAFTA will mean less tariffs on Emerson products and finally put its inventory within reach of Mexican consumers.

Certainly for us, it's going to open up lot markets that are really right now prohibitive in terms of the tariff. Most of our products as they sell in Mexico now incur a 20% duty. If we can get rid of that duty, that's just going to allow us to sell a hell of a lot more of our products in Mexico that right now are not able to compete as well as we'd like them to compete.

Already there's been a rush of industry. A new steel plant owned by Guadalajara investors is opening up on the outskirts of the city. A huge new bottling plant has been built. Business operations here can prosper with inexpensive labor close enough and competitive enough to the United States. These companies are expected to flourish under NAFTA. Across the border is the small town of Calexico, baked by the sun. Little changes here day to day. The Calexico Chronicle on second Street is where the local mayor tells the Chronicle editor, Hildy Carillo, of his next political fundraiser.

Primary is going to be a dinner dance at the National Guard, $25 a couple and we're going to have a fantastic dinner and at the same time, I will be making my presentation, goals and objective for the board of supervisor.

Oh, Pretty good.

Calexico Mayor, Tony Tirado, has seen progress sometimes bypass his city, but now with cross-border trade, a hot topic, he hopes the predominantly agricultural county can capitalize on a developing Mexicali.

In all the years that I lived here in Calexico and the border that the borders have never been given their rightful, how shall I say, in the perspective of funding from the gift federal government to upgrade our borders. Okay. Until now, because this is where the action's going to be. So we have to improve and one of the factors is we were able to convince the federal government, "Hey, your port port of entry here in Calexico is inadequate."

Indeed, the government is spending millions on a new border crossing to handle more commerce. Lower tariffs and open investment laws under NAFTA will now allow border businessmen to plan years in advance. [Backgound--natural sounds--office work] Secretaries type out waybills and answer calls from warehouses at Bill Polkinhorn's custom brokerage house. The company was founded by Bill's grandfather at the turn of the century, originally shipping cotton from Mexico to Los Angeles for markets in the Orient. Now his grandson mostly handles electronics with a made in Mexico label. Polkinhorn explains NAFTA will increase trade.

NAFTA is kind of going to be the icing on the cake to a trade program with Mexico that we kind of started in 1985 or 86. We've seen exports from the United States to Mexico increase from eight to 10 billion a year, clear up to 40 billion since 1985. NAFTA's going to make it possible for, mostly for the United States to sell our products down there. Plus there's a lot of products, Mexican manufactured products coming up from Mexico City, Guadalajara, and the west coast of Mexico that are coming into the LA area either for consumption in LA or for shipment to the Orient.

Custom brokers like Polkinhorn on the US side of the border are excited about NAFTA, but one only has to wander a few blocks to the Mexican border to see how poverty still separates these two countries. In Calexico and Mexicali, the different standards of living still cause disputes over immigration and border pollution. [Background--natural sounds--harmonica] Yards away from US. Customs checkpoints, one man panhandles with his harmonica on a Mexicali street. Boys and Girls Hawk, chicklets and newspapers, thousands come to this city searching for a better life and delivering jobs, housing, schools and health clinics are problems that'll take more than a paper treaty like NAFTA to solve. For Latino USA, I'm Ancel Martinez in Mexicali, Mexico.