US media reports often focus on claims of migrants being forced from Central America by gang violence and corrupt politicians. This is only the final piece of a much bigger puzzle that has been designed and built to support US agriculture. Almost 90% of Central American migrants come from the “Golden Triangle “ countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras where subsidence farmers have been driven out of business by cheap subsidized food from the US.
These farmers often lived deep in the forest where they could farm unused lands and carry the crops to market. Now, the only crops from the area not directly competing with US products are tropical fruits like bananas. The local banana industry has been transformed by proprietary GMO engineered products and massive growing operations so the family farmer is left out of the market once again.
The lifting of trade barriers by CAFTA-DR and NAFTA has resulted in the flooding of World markets with maize and corn that are heavily subsidized by US taxpayers. Even prepared food like corn chips and other packaged food has overwhelmed any remaining food preparation business in Central America. Poor countries are ill equipped to argue legal cases in World courts against the United States where claims of government subsidies could be presented.
Over 30% of the labor force in these countries worked in agriculture and those jobs are largely gone. That lack of opportunity forces workers and families to move to the big cities to avoid starvation. This is where the gangs prevail and the rural migrants are forced to cooperate in the drug trade or face death. If they stay on the farms they can only survive by working in the drug trade.
If Democrats gain control of policy in Washington they should look seriously at ending some CAFTA-DR trade agreements and allow reasonable tariffs on US farm products in Central America. CAFTA-DR was engineered by George W Bush to eliminate tariffs on US goods going to Central America (the famous “Terriers and Barrifs” as he put it in a speech). It’s a mystery why those countries agreed since there were already no tariffs on goods going to the US. Texas is a major recipient of farm subsidies so W had some incentive to push CAFTA-DR as they were often overwhelmed with excess crops in The Longhorn State.
Not that long ago 90% of the US worked in agriculture and the towns were just support systems for the farms. We should allow other countries to do the same or expect to see continued dislocation and suffering.
My hope is that someone working in policy planning for the DNC or working for Congressional committees will see this and consider devoting some resources to the problem. Indigenous people from the Golden Triangle are exceptionally hard hit by Covid in the US and are being easily exploited because they don’t speak Spanish or English. They would gladly return to their families if there was a viable path to farming again in their own country. We should consider subsidizing farmers there and help develop the local markets instead of throwing money at big corporations in the US. We are spending billions on The Wall but a helping hand to the farmers would do much more toward stabilizing the border while also allowing those families to live in peace.