- Mexico has banned imports of poultry from eight US states
on health and safety grounds, as continued unrest over the North Atlantic
Free Trade Agreement prompted the country's main farmers' union to threaten
a national strike at the beginning of next month.
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- Under Nafta, signed in 1992, all tariffs on a range of
agricultural products, including poultry and pork, were to be eliminated
at the beginning of this year.
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- However, Mexican poultry producers complain that the
market could be flooded by US chicken legs and wings, and that they have
not received subsidies from the government to compete.
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- There are widespread calls for the government to renegotiate
Nafta.
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- The agriculture department's ban on all poultry imports
- which covers all chicken products from Texas, California, Maine, Connecticut,
Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and West Virginia, is officially
for health reasons, and follows an outbreak of Newcastle virus in those
states.
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- However, by banning imports from some of the largest
US poultry-producing states, the government has secured a breathing space
while it tries to deal with demands from farmers' groups.
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- The National Farmers' Confederation said on Tuesday it
was calling a "national strike" for February 5.
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- The organisation, one of the largest covering farm workers
in the country, said its day of action would involve blockades of all main
highways, ports and border crossings.
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- The developments follow the end of a 20-day truce between
farmers' groups and the government, agreed at the turn of the year, in
which the two sides have been discussing possible extra aid for the farm
sector.
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- Possible compromises involve using emergency provisions
in Nafta to delay the removal of taxes. US poultry producers, which employ
Mexican workers on both sides of the border, already have a large share
of the Mexican market, and have suggested such a compromise to avert the
risk of a backlash against their Mexican subsidiaries.
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- This could delay removing the 49 per cent tariffs on
chicken parts for three to five years.
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- Mid-term congressional elections are due in July, and
analysts said opposition politicians - particularly in the former governing
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which has strong links with farm
groups - were using the issue to attack the government.
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- The government appears divided. The new foreign secretary,
Luis Ernesto Derbez, said this month that "what needs to be corrected"
in Nafta would be corrected.
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- Santiago Creel, interior minister, has also said he is
open to renegotiation, but Fernando Canales, the new economy secretary
- a position that holds responsibility for trade talks - ruled out renegotiation.
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- President Vicente Fox has said renegotiation is possible
but he has warned that it could leave Mexico worse off.
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- http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.
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