this gets the right point: nafta was classic class warfare from the investor class, and the problems that need to be resolved have less to do with free trade and more to do with reasserting sovereignty over the interests of foreign investment, who are using the "free trade" regime to knock down borders for their own interests, while strengthening them against the interests of workers.

but, i just want to add that the reason this was able to work was that capital was able to manipulate american workers (and canadian workers, as well) into seeing mexican workers as competitors. this leveraged bargaining position wouldn't have been effective had american and canadian workers stood together with mexican workers, and demanded equal treatment, rather than cower in fear at the prospect of job losses. but, capital was able to exploit a complex and fatal cocktail of nationalism and racism in the working class and forcefully exert an "otherness" on the mexican worker which resulted in an incremental lowering of wages and labour standards.

the solution is the same today as it was in 1994: workers need to shed their nationalist and racialist prejudices and form a common front against capital that transcends boundaries. american and canadian unions need to get active in organizing mexican workers, and then integrate with them in such a way that takes away the leverage that capital has constructed. it is in the interests of american and canadian workers to help raise living standards in mexico, but it is also in the interests of mexican workers to help explain the totality of factors going into why production in mexico is so much cheaper there (which includes the existence of a state-run oil monopoly). we can learn from each other, and we can help each other - but we have to begin with the realization that we are not in competition, but aligned together within and against the same class interests.

i also want to point out that in a lot of ways canada is not so dissimilar from mexico. the liberals are not the canadian left. and, there is plenty of potential for a left-wing anti-nafta uprising here, too, should the negotiations play out in a certain way - and should our nominally socialist party (or perhaps our green party....) pull it's head out of it's ass and get with it.

https://qz.com/917175/trump-is-right-to-criticize-nafta-but-hes-totally-wrong-about-why-its-bad-for-american-workers/