Some 200 Mexican farmers blocked on Tuesday the Cordoba-Americas
bridge linking the country with the United States to protest the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The farmers demand a revision of the agreement among Mexico and
its northern neighbor of the United States and Canada, which lifts
tariffs for US and Canadian exports of corn, beans, sugar and milk
powder.
The measure will damage Mexico's corn and bean farming, two
basic food for local people, said Victor Quintana, head of the
Farmers' Democratic Front that organized the protest.
The farmers closed the bridge that links Ciudad Juarez in Mexico
and El Paso in the US state of Texas at 0:00 a.m. Tuesday (0700
GMT) and the blockage was expected to last 13 hours, Quintana
said.
Many farmers in the country believe the tariff lift will deal a
fatal blow to the already fragile agriculture in the country.
Following several years of negotiations, the United States,
Canada and Mexico agreed to launch a North American Free Trade
Agreement in Jan. 1994.
The agreement will remove most barriers to trade and investment
among the countries. Under the NAFTA, all non-tariff barriers to
agricultural trade between the United States and Mexico were
eliminated.
In addition, many tariffs were lifted immediately, with others
being phased out over periods of five to 15 years.
Corn, beans, sugar and milk were granted special 15-year import
protection when the NAFTA was negotiated in 1993, time that was
supposed to be used to prepare Mexico for competition. Tuesday
should be the end of the adjustment period.
(Xinhua News Agency January 2, 2008)
