structural:expansion, structural:summarization
Mexico

Maquiladoras (Mexican assembly plants that take in imported components and produce goods for export) became the landmark of trade in Mexico. They moved to Mexico from the United States, hence the debate over the loss of American jobs. Income in the maquiladora sector had increased 15.5% since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994. Other sectors also benefited from the free trade agreement, and the share of exports to the U.S. from non-border states increased in the last five years while the share of exports from border states decreased. This allowed for rapid growth in non-border metropolitan areas such as Toluca, León, and Puebla, which were all larger in population than Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, and Reynosa.

The overall effect of the Mexico–U.S. agricultural agreement is disputed. Mexico did not invest in the infrastructure necessary for competition, such as efficient railroads and highways. This resulted in more difficult living conditions for the country's poor. Mexico's agricultural exports increased 9.4 percent annually between 1994 and 2001, while imports increased by only 6.9 percent a year during the same period.

One of the most affected agricultural sectors was the meat industry. Mexico went from a small player in the pre-1994 U.S. export market to the second largest importer of U.S. agricultural products in 2004, and NAFTA may have been a major catalyst for this change. Free trade removed the hurdles that impeded business between the two countries, so Mexico provided a growing market for meat for the U.S., and increased sales and profits for the U.S. meat industry. A coinciding noticeable increase in the Mexican per capita GDP greatly changed meat consumption patterns as per capita meat consumption grew.

One of concerns raised by the implementation of NAFTA in Mexico was wealth inequality. National Bureau of Economic Research found that NAFTA increased the wage gap between the lowest and highest earners, directly affecting wealth inequality. According to Global Trade Watch, under NAFTA Mexico observed a decline in real average annual wages, with this decline mainly affecting those who earned the least - the real average wage of minimum wage workers decreased by 14 percent. GTW concluded that "inflation-adjusted wages for virtually every category of Mexican worker decreased over NAFTA’s first six years, even as hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs were being shifted from the United States to Mexico". Similar effects were found in a study published in the International Journal of Economic Sciences, which found that NAFTA had a direct impact on wage inequality in Mexico; from 1994 onwards, the wage gap between the poorest and the richest workers noticeably increased.

Production of corn in Mexico increased since NAFTA. However, internal demand for corn had increased beyond Mexico's supply to the point where imports became necessary, far beyond the quotas Mexico originally negotiated. Zahniser & Coyle pointed out that corn prices in Mexico, adjusted for international prices, have drastically decreased, but through a program of subsidies expanded by former president Vicente Fox, production remained stable since 2000. Reducing agricultural subsidies, especially corn subsidies, was suggested as a way to reduce harm to Mexican farmers.

A 2001 Journal of Economic Perspectives review of the existing literature found that NAFTA was a net benefit to Mexico. By 2003, 80% of the commerce in Mexico was executed only with the U.S. The commercial sales surplus, combined with the deficit with the rest of the world, created a dependency in Mexico's exports. These effects were evident in the 2001 recession, which resulted in either a low rate or a negative rate in Mexico's exports.

A 2015 study found that Mexico's welfare increased by 1.31% as a result of the NAFTA tariff reductions and that Mexico's intra-bloc trade increased by 118%. Inequality and poverty fell in the most globalization -affected regions of Mexico. 2013 and 2015 studies showed that Mexican small farmers benefited more from NAFTA than large-scale farmers.

NAFTA had also been credited with the rise of the Mexican middle class. A Tufts University study found that NAFTA lowered the average cost of basic necessities in Mexico by up to 50%. This price reduction increased cash-on-hand for many Mexican families, allowing Mexico to graduate more engineers than Germany each year.

Growth in new sales orders indicated an increase in demand for manufactured products, which resulted in expansion of production and a higher employment rate to satisfy the increment in the demand. The growth in the maquiladora industry and in the manufacturing industry was of 4.7% in August 2016. Three quarters of the imports and exports are with the U.S.

Tufts University political scientist Daniel W. Drezner argued that NAFTA made it easier for Mexico to transform to a real democracy and become a country that views itself as North American. This has boosted cooperation between the United States and Mexico.