The fact that the authorities have spoken with the farmers doesn’t mean their demands have been met. Caught between the fire of the USMCA and the wall of public policies that strangle or abandon them, they are fighting for their survival.
Driven by concerns over US crop dumping, monopoly profiteering, the decline of food sovereignty & insufficient state support, farmers have struck for the third in six months. Now transporters have joined.
Organizers considered the government’s has no interest in resolving the agricultural crisis, and balked at the demand that they not hold any demonstrations during this year’s World Cup.
Despite this multi-billion dollar business, the US Trade Representative continues to assert a series of non-tariff barriers prevent the free access of genetically modified corn to Mexican territory.
Research professor Gerardo Noriega says the cost of armed and trade wars has hit Mexican agricultural producers hard.
The objective of the mobilizations is to pressure large importers & grain buyers, who buy subsidized US imports instead of national production.
Mexico’s Secretary of Economy touts a new trade policy of origin over price, yet the import of highly subsidized staple grains benefits US producers at the expense of Mexico’s domestic producers.
The relentless promotion of Free Trade Agreements has led to widespread privatization and deregulation, primarily benefiting corporations at the expense of the working class everywhere.
Mexican sugar exports face quotas in the US, but US corn syrup and high fructose corn syrup have no import restrictions in Mexico, a situation even worse than the original NAFTA agreement.
Mexico’s three year crisis is causing desperation, aggravated by US crop dumping, a hostile Agriculture Secretary, monopoly profiteering and an unwillingness from the government to protect agriculture and food sovereignty.