Mexico ready to retaliate by hurting American corn farmers
Mexico is ready to hit the United States where it hurts: corn.
Mexico is one of the best American corn buyers in the world today. And the Mexican senator Armando Rios Piter, who heads a Congress Committee on foreign relations, says that he will present a bill this week when Mexico will buy corn in Brazil and Argentina instead of the United States.
This is one of the first signs of potential concrete action in Mexico in response to the threats of President Trump against the country.
“I will send an invoice for the corn we buy in the Midwest and … change for Brazil or Argentina,” Rios Piter, 43, told CNN in CNN on Sunday to an anti-Trump demonstration in Mexico.
He added: It is a “good way to tell them that this hostile relationship has consequences, let’s hope it changes”.
American corn is part of a large part of the country’s food. In Mexico City, gourmet restaurants with taco stands in the street, corn favorites like tacos are everywhere.
Related: the daughter of the Mexican farmer: Alena has destroyed us
America is also the largest producer and exporter of corn in the world. American corn expeditions to Mexico have since caused Alena, a free trade agreement signed between Mexico, America and Canada.
American farmers sent $ 2.4 billion in Mexico in 2015, the last year of available data. In 1995, the year after Alena became the law, corn exports to Mexico were only $ 391 million.
Experts say that such an invoice would be very expensive for us farmers.
“If we see indeed a trade war where Mexico is starting to buy in Brazil … We will see it allocated the corn market and overturn towards the rest of the agricultural economy,” explains Darin Newsom, main analyst at DTN, an agricultural management company.
Rios Piter’s bill is another sign of Mexico’s desire to respond to Trump’s threats. Trump wants to charge a wall at the border, and he threatened taxes on Mexican imports ranging from 20% to 35%.
Trump also wants to renegotiate Alena. He blamed it for a flow of manufacturing jobs in Mexico. A research report on the non -partisan congress revealed that it was not true.
Related: Double Mexico on Trump “ Emergency Plan ”
However, Trump says that he wants a better trade agreement for the American worker – although he has not said what a better deal looks like.
All the parties indicated two weeks ago that negotiations would begin in May after a 90 -day consultation period.
But Trump says that if the negotiations do not support the agreement he wants, he threatens to withdraw from Alena.
Such a difficult speech is not well received by Mexican leaders like Rios Piter. He is not alone. The Mexican Minister of the Economy, Ildefonso Guajardo, said that in January, Mexico would respond “immediately” at any price of Trump.
“It is very clear that we must be ready to be immediately able to neutralize the impact of a measure of this nature,” said Guajardo on January 13 during a Mexican press program.
–Shasta Darlington helped relate to this story
CNNMONEY (Mexico) First publication on February 13, 2017: 12:06 pm HE
