Anti-NAFTA Demonstrations Open the New Year

Anti-NAFTA demonstrators blocked the commercial bridge linking El Paso and Ciudad Juarez for 36 hours starting January 1, searching trucks for imported corn and beans. The demonstrators were part of a national coalition dubbed "Sin Maiz no Hay Pais, Sin Frijol Tempoco" (Without Corn and Beans there is no Country). On January 1, the full provisions of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) took effect, abolishing protective tariffs on corn, beans, powdered milk and sugar. The impact in the Mexican countryside, already reeling from subsidized imports of U.S. agricultural grains, is expected to be devastating to the farmers who have survived to this point.

The national coalition, mostly groups aligned with the PRD, include the Central Campesino Cardenista (CCC), the National Association of Rural Merchants and Producers (ANEC), El Barzon, the National Council of Campesino Organizations, the National Coordinator Plan of Ayala, and the Mexican Alliance for the Self-Determination of the People. The coalition is in talks with PRI affiliated groups, including the National Campesino Congress (CNC), and labor organizations, including the National Workers Union (UNT).

Campesinos united with independent labor organizations in 2004 and mounted a series of actions, including a march of over 100,000 in Mexico City in late January. The actions led to a loosely worded agreement with the Fox administration that accomplished little more than a temporary buy-off of some campesino leaders. However, the situation in rural areas is getting worse rapidly, and this time may be different. Some party leaders sympathetic to the rural dilemma called for a renegotiation of NAFTA this week, but quickly compromised with the Calderon administration on a formal "table for dialogue." From the perspective of the political parties, the "table for dialogue" is a technique to demobilize increasingly restive campesinos who are demanding an end to NAFTA and increased aid for rural areas that will make Mexican producers competitive with highly subsidized U.S. corporate producers. Calderon is unlikely to respond positively. For the time being, he seems to be content to allow his widely unpopular Secretary of Agriculture, Alberto Cardenas, to take the heat. Look for Calderon to jettison Cardenas at a strategic moment in coming months in an effort to take the steam out of the movement (and for Calderon to land a cushy, though less public, government post).

Related News: Mexican farmers protest against opening of borders to subsidized U.S. agricultural products, such as corn, beans and sugar. [Read the article from the Trade Observatory]