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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | January 2008 
Mexican Lawmakers Demand Calderon Review Nafta
 Andres R. Martinez & Adriana Lopez Caraveo - Bloomberg
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| | Mexican farmers protest the end of import protections for their country's corn and bean crops in Mexico City, Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2008. Corn, beans, sugar and milk were granted special 15-year import protections when the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, was negotiated in 1993. (AP/Eduardo Verdugo) |
Mexican lawmakers demanded President Felipe Calderon consider renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement and meet with farmers, who fear a flood of cheap U.S. imports.
Members of Calderon's National Action Party and the two largest opposition groups agreed on the demand after farm workers staged scattered protests against the Jan. 1 elimination of duties on U.S. corn, sugar, beans and milk as part of Nafta. The request was approved in a vote today.
"This is a national security issue," said Samuel Aguilar, of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, in a speech before the Congress. "The agricultural chapter of Nafta could generate a social conflict."
The initiative, led by Speaker of the House and opposition party member Ruth Zavaleta, asks the Agriculture, Finance and Economy ministers to create programs that will allow Mexican producers to compete against U.S. farmers.
Mexico may lose as many as 350,000 farm jobs this year because of competition from the U.S., Cruz Lopez Aguilar, president of the Confederation of National Farm Workers, said in a Jan. 2 interview. Confederation leaders will meet with the Agriculture Minister tomorrow in Veracruz state to ask him to renegotiate the terms of Nafta, he said.
The demonstrations against Nafta may continue. Confederation members plan to take over government offices and gather in Mexico City's main square on Jan. 31, Lopez Aguilar said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Andres R. Martinez in Mexico City at amartinez28(at)bloomberg.net; Adriana Lopez Caraveo in Mexico City at adrianalopez(at)bloomberg.net |
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