NAFTA and Narcos: How Free Trade Brought You the Drug Trade

Maria Josefina Saldaña-Portillo, New York UniversityCUNY Graduate Center, October 24, 2014In this lecture, Professor Saldaña-Portillo addresses the multiple ways in which the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has affected the price of labor, increased narco-terrorism, and facilitated the transfer of drugs from Latin America to the United States, as well as the laundering of funds by drug traffickers in the United States and Mexico.  She situates these processes within the parallel language used to describe Islamic terrorism and the vilified image of the "Indio-barbaro del Norte," a term used in the 19th century to refer to Apache enemies of the United States and Mexico.