Question: Hello, I'm a Polytechnical Institute student in Mexico. I have a question for Lyndon LaRouche. What would the approach be for NAFTA, in North America?

LaRouche: For NAFTA? I intend to get rid of it. The short of it: It is totally insane and unjust. First of all, look, I'm in the United States. I've got some major projects in northern Mexico; let me be concrete: Let's take the area between the two Sierra Madres in northern Mexico, an area I visited in Saltillo recently. I saw, obviously, tremendous need there.

Now, this area needs to participate in large-scale water projects. And we have two aspects of that. We have the Mexico side of the water development for Mexico, as such; and there are various of these projects, and we've discussed that, and that is on our agenda. We have also, the northern side of this, which comes from the Arctic, down through the so-called Great American Desert, into northern Mexico. So therefore, we do need an integrated approach--to water, power, transportation management, in this entire region--from the South of Mexico, which is water rich, to the North, which is water poor; the Great American Desert, which is water poor, and then the richness of the water supplies coming from other sources. We have to manage this.

However, we're managing this, essentially, among three sovereign states: Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Now, what are we going to do with this water, this development? We're going to promote industries. We're going to promote industries, particularly in northern Mexico. Let's take this area between the two Sierra Madres in the relatively dessicated area. We're going to support industries--not maquiladoras, the way they've done now, but industries, which are able to provide a sufficiently high income, through protectionist measures, supplied partly from the United States--protectionist measures for Mexico, in order to enable Mexicans to create capital formation

 and improvement, to employ Mexicans, who can support their families from their incomes, either as investors in these small firms, or larger firms, or as employees in these industries.

So therefore, we need a protectionist system, which is based on the mutual benefits to the United States and Mexico.

Let's take a case, take this case of the water, which is of a river which is called the Rio Grande from Texas. Now, the Mexicans have been raising food, at below cost, really, for U.S. consumption: providing cheap food for Americans, who are not willing to pay, apparently, for their own food, and want cheap food from Mexico. We have drawn off water, from the Rio Grande into northern Mexico, to help supply this food growing. As a result, Mexico is supplying food to the United States, cheaply, at a price which is based on this flow of water, from the Rio Grande, to the cheap labor of agriculture in northern Mexico. Now, these idiots in Texas, want the water, from the food they and others have eaten! It's insane: This is NAFTA. This is NAFTA.

My view is: Repeal NAFTA! Go to a protectionist policy, under which governments agree, on protectionist measures--tariff and trade measures--which have the included purpose of promoting targetted growth of industries, in areas of both countries. And, one of the areas I'd be looking at, as President, is this area between the two Sierra Madres in northern Mexico.

We need a rail project through there, all the way to Mexico City, because we have to have the integration of Mexico, which means you have to have an efficient rail connection from Mexico City, north. Otherwise, you don't have an integrated country.

We need a water project, all-Mexico water project, as part of the water management for there. But, we also have to think about what are the businesses, the farms and businesses, which are going to supply the income for the Mexican population in that area, of northern Mexico.

Therefore, if there are projects for specific industries, as well as specific kinds of infrastructure projects, required for that area in northern Mexico, therefore, the United States should agree, with Mexico, on the basis of discussion, of what the tariff and trade agreement should be.

You have people in the United States, who are complaining about the Mexicans who are going into the United States to take cheap-labor jobs. Well, maybe the solution is, two things: Pay the Mexicans in the United States a decent income, instead of cheap labor; and also, provide the alternative job possibility, at decent wages, in northern Mexico. These two things.

So therefore, the two nations have the obligation to come to some kind of a system of agreements, or a rotating system of agreements, under which we ensure that investments, which are made on both sides of the border, to benefit the people on both sides of the border, that these investments are protected, by protectionist measures of tariff and trade agreements.

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