Salinas set to lecture on NAFTA in Mandel Hall

The Katz Center for Mexican Studies will welcome Carlos Salinas de Gortari, former President of Mexico and one of the principal architects of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. Salinas will speak about the agreement as part of a lecture series on NAFTA sponsored by the center.

The lecture, which will be delivered in English at 5 p.m. Friday, Dec. 3, in Mandel Hall, is open only to members of the University community. University identification will be requested.

“Because Salinas was instrumental in establishing NAFTA, we thought it would be particularly appropriate that he give the first address,” said Emilio Kourí, Associate Professor in History and Director of the Katz Center for Mexican Studies. “Salinas visited the University back in 1991 to inaugurate the Mexican Studies Program and to promote the signing of NAFTA, so it is quite fitting that we have him back as a guest.”

NAFTA, which was a primary objective for Salinas during his presidential term, was approved by the U.S. Congress in November 1993, and implemented Jan. 1, 1994. The agreement combined Canada, the United States and Mexico into the world’s largest free trade area.

The lecture series will provide a forum to examine and discuss the effects and implications of the groundbreaking trade agreement, 10 years after NAFTA came into effect.

Subsequent lectures in 2005 are those being presented by Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas, founder of Mexico’s Party of the Democratic Revolution, Thursday, Jan. 13; John Coatsworth, professor of history at Harvard University, Friday, Feb. 4; and Armando Bartra of Mexico’s Instituto Maya is tentatively scheduled to speak Wednesday, Feb. 23.