NAFTA leads to more used gas guzzlers in Mexico.
Recently it has been reported that NAFTA’s requirements of free trade between Mexico and the United States has resulted in a dramatic increase in large used vehicles being shipped south and resold. The environmental concern is that while many in the United States become more environmentally conscious and trade in their big SUVs for more fuel efficient models, their old gas guzzlers are merely being reused south of the border.
While it appears that this is the case, we’re not entirely sure the environmental impacts are completely negative. Prior to the jurisdiction of NAFTA over the trade of used cars, Mexicans had little access to previously owned American cars. Trade barriers prevented the majority of them from being legally transferred across the border. A main consequence was that the Mexican market for used cars was artificially small and consequently more new cars were purchased. According to the Times’ article the big three American car makers are quite concerned that the new openness will decrease the number of new cars they sell in Mexico.
It seems to us that although the used cars will often be bigger polluters, it may actually be better for the environment to reuse them instead of junking them for completely new cars manufacturered from scratch. Since we don’t have any statistics on this topic, we’d like to encourage anyone with knowledge on this to comment on this post.
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