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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | June 2006 
Mexico Leftist Presidential Candidate Says He'll Protect Farmers from NAFTA
 AP
| | Presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, of the Democratic Revolution Party, PRD, gestures as he speaks during a rally in the southern city of Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico on Saturday June 17, 2006. On July 2, Mexico will hold presidential elections. (AP/Dario Lopez-Mills) |
Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico - Mexican leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took a hard line against the North American Free Trade Agreement on Saturday, saying if elected, he'll refuse to eliminate tariffs on U.S. white corn and beans, a looming requirement of the trade deal that could have a devastating effect on Mexico's staple crops.
"We are not going to accept this clause that they signed," Lopez Obrador told supporters in Chiapas, an extremely poor farming state.
Tariffs on all agricultural products must be removed in 2008 under NAFTA. But Mexican farmers said hefty agricultural subsidies in the United States give that country's white corn and beans an unfair advantage over the Mexican market, which depends in large part on small-scale and mostly subsistence farmers.
Mexicans worry if these farmers can't sell the country's signature crops at a price that competes with trucked-in produce from the United States, they'll go out of business altogether. That could severely damage Mexico's agricultural economy, which farmers said has already suffered since the trade deal went into effect in 1994, forcing many to migrate to the United States.
Mexico's agriculture minister pleaded with Canada and the United States this month to reconsider removal of the corn and bean tariffs but U.S. undersecretary for agriculture J.B. Penn flatly rejected the appeal, saying: "We have no interest in renegotiating any parts of the agreement."
Despite the concern, the administration of outgoing Mexican president Vicente Fox has stood by NAFTA, saying Mexico honours its trade commitments.
Lopez Obrador said he would have no such allegiance to a deal he said harms Mexican farmers.
"This clause will not go into effect."
With two weeks to go before the July 2 election, the fiery ex-Mexico City mayor also attacked Fox and the "technocrats who govern our country badly," saying they do "nothing more than copy the bad from abroad."
Lopez Obrador said he's confident many Mexicans will vote against rival Felipe Calderon of the conservative governing National Action party, or PAN, because they are angry with Fox for not fulfilling his campaign promises, which included creating millions of jobs. Calderon and Lopez Obrador are running about even.
Lopez Obrador has promised to raise the income of poor families by as much as 20 per cent by providing them with subsidized power and basic goods. He also has promised to extend free pensions for the elderly he established in Mexico City to the rest of the country.
Lopez Obrador has said the handouts - estimated to cost the equivalent of about $8 billion Cdn - would be funded by cutting the salaries of Mexico's army of government workers, particularly of the top earners, and he has promised to draw one-half the salary of Fox, who received $265,000 last year. |
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