Indigenous Peoples of Mexico at the Crossroads: The Human Cost of Continental Trade

In Chapter 3, James Hopkins cautions that modern trade agreements benefit an elite few and that the agreements are reliant upon overly ambitious macroeconomic theories. There is a growing awareness that international trade’s net effect is widening the gap between economic winners and losers, much to the detriment of Indigenous peoples. In his chapter, Professor Hopkins examines the impacts of international trade on the Indigenous peoples of Mexico and provides some hope that the USMCA, if ratified, may be an improvement to the NAFTA, which has contributed to a dire human rights situation which threatens the lives and livelihoods of Indigenous peoples.