Working poor women in Mexico facing another crisis

After Mexico, the United States, and Canada signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, the Mexican economy became even more vulnerable than it had been to fluctuations in the U.S. economy. In 2008, although the United States had officially acknowledged the recession caused by the subprime mortgage crisis, Mexican officials seemed nonchalant about the recession’s likely consequences for the national economy. But the recession hit Mexico hard. Not only was the main customer for Mexican exports in the middle of a deep recession, but other sources of income from the United States—especially tourism and remittances—declined substantially.