U.S. Business South of the Border: None of Our Business?

The US cannot control the standards (or lack thereof) set by the sovereign nation of Mexico and cannot force businesses and investors to stay in the US because of NAFTA's free-trade policies which eliminated thousands of tariffs. This supposedly forces the US into a lose-lose situation: Either keep US standards competitive or risk disinvestment. There is still no way for US citizens who benefit greatly from companies staying in the US to override the decision of private corporations. Because of this fact, business owners hold a certain amount of power over public policy in the US government, which must decide which is best for America: More business or better business.

US consumers could counter this problem by simply boycotting businesses that harm the environment, pay workers low wages and move production to Mexico, but the product's box will not have that sort of detailed information about the company's practices (maybe NAFTA and the WTO should require that alone for international free-trade) so most Americans are uninformed even though many do care about the issue. Lack of time to become educated, lack of choices and lack of monetary means to make better purchases leads many to buy products from companies operating on the cheap and thereby contribute to perpetuation of the process. It's a vicious cycle and could be thought of as an economic prison.