Mexico is ready to hit America where it hurts: corn.
Mexico is one of the top buyers of American corn in the world today. And Mexican Senator Armando Rios Pitter, which leads a Congress committee on foreign relations, says he will introduce a bill this week where Mexico will buy corn from Brazil and Argentina instead of the United States.
It is one of the first signs of possible concrete action from Mexico in response to the dangers of President Trump against the country.
43 -year -old Rios Pitter told CNN’s Leyla Santiago in an anti -Trump protest in Mexico City on Sunday, “I am going to send a bill for corn that we are buying in midwests and … changes in Brazilian or Argentina.”
He said: This is “a good way to tell them that the results of this hostile relationship are, hopefully it changes.”
American corn goes into a lot of food in the country. In Mexico City, from Fine Dining Restaurant to Taco stand on the road, corn-based favorite like Tacos can be found everywhere.
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America is also the world’s largest producer and corn exporter. The US corn shipment for Mexico has signed a free trade deal between Mexico, America and Canada since NAFTA.
American farmers sent a $ 2.4 billion corn to Mexico in 2015, the most recent year of the available figures. In 1995, after NAFTA’s law enacted, corn export in Mexico was $ 391 million.
Experts say that this kind of bill will be very expensive for American farmers.
Darin Newsom, a senior analyst of an agricultural management firm DTN, says, “If we really see a business war, where Mexico starts buying from Brazil … So we are going to see that it affects the corn market and removes the rest of the AG economy.”
Rios Pitter’s bill is another sign of Mexico’s will to respond to Trump’s dangers. Trump Mexico wants to pay for a wall on the border, and he threatens taxes ranging from 20% to 35% on Mexican imports.
Trump also wants to re -organize NAFTA. He blames it for the flood of manufacturing jobs for Mexico. A nonpartison Congress research report found that this is not true.
Related: Mexico Trump doubles on ‘casual plan’
Nevertheless, Trump says he wants a better business deal for an American worker – although he did not say what a better deal looks like.
All the parties indicated two weeks ago that negotiations would begin in May after the 90-day consultation period.
But Trump says that if the conversation does not deal with what he wants, he threatens to move away from NAFTA.
Such a difficult thing is not obtained well to Mexican leaders such as Rios Pitter. He is not alone. The Mexico’s economy minister, ILLDONSO Guazardo, said that in January, the Mexico Trump would “immediately” reply for any tariff.
“It is very clear that we have to be prepared to be able to immediately neutralize the effect of a measure of that nature,” Guzarrdo said on 13 January at the Mexican News show.
-Shasta Darlington contributed reporting to this story
CNNMoney (Mexico City) First published on 13 February 2017: ET at 12:06 pm
