California Wine Exports to Mexico and the NAFTA Available to Purchase

The free trade area between the US and Canada was extended in 1994 to include Mexico. This article examines Mexico's demand for wine produced in the US. The citizens of Mexico do not traditionally consume wine. Brandy and rum are the preferred alcoholic beverages. But, Mexico has a large population and is expected to grow at a rapid rate in the future. Further, when the agreement took effect in 1994 the tariff on US wine was 20 percent The price of US wines will decrease significantly over the next ten years as the tariffs are eliminated. NAFTA also removed other wine specific trade barriers as well. The price elasticity of demand is −1.02 for the 1987–1994 period. The income elasticity is close to five and the cross price elasticity with EC wines was 0.3. Both the price and income elasticities portend a positive impact on the demand for US wines. The drawback to the optimistic predictions are the extremely low initial levels of consumption of wine in Mexico. So, even a doubling of consumption would still have a negligible impact on the US wine industry.