By Mark Richardson
Activists and civil society organizations are planning a rally in El Paso this weekend to oppose what they call a rigged trade agenda that puts billionaires and corporations ahead of working people in North America.
The “Cross-Border Days of Solidarity Against Rigged Trade” rally is set for 9 a.m. Saturday at Cafe Mayapan in downtown El Paso. It is part of a series of educational events at the border ahead of the pending renegotiation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement trade deal.
Organizers say they want governments to prioritize people and communities over corporations, reject efforts to pit working people in the United States, Mexico and Canada against one another, and show that border communities have shared interests, including good-paying jobs, a healthy environment and sovereignty.
Kathleen Staudt, a retired political science professor at the University of Texas at El Paso, said previous trade agreements brought wealth to businesses, but not necessarily to workers.
“My special interest is in border inequalities, because the more that we can reduce inequalities at borders, the less exploitation there will be,” Staudt said. “The U.S.-Mexico border was in the 40 most unequal borders in the entire world.”
The Texas rally is part of a series of June meetings in pairs of border cities across North America.
Cemelli de Aztlan, a community organizer for the Texas Fair Trade Coalition, said workers along the Texas-Mexico border suffered some of the steepest job losses in the region after the North American Free Trade Agreement went into effect.
“When we think of NAFTA … you saw a lot of Midwestern white men who lost their jobs, and that was the violin that was played, but we were invisible from the beginning,” de Aztlan said.
Organizers say President Donald Trump’s tariff program has increased inequality in border regions and has not improved job conditions on either side of the border.
