<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""><div><div class="">Begin forwarded message:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);" class=""><b class="">From: </b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif;" class="">"Wise, Timothy A" <<a href="mailto:tim.wise@tufts.edu" class="">tim.wise@tufts.edu</a>><br class=""></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);" class=""><b class="">Subject: </b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif;" class=""><b class="">My new article: Mexico's Farm Movement Rejects New NAFTA Agreement</b><br class=""></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);" class=""><b class="">Date: </b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif;" class="">September 15, 2018 at 11:08:57 AM EDT<br class=""></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);" class=""><b class="">To: </b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif;" class="">Arthur Stamoulis <<a href="mailto:arthur@citizenstrade.org" class="">arthur@citizenstrade.org</a>>, Arthur Stamoulis <<a href="mailto:orftc@citizenstrade.org" class="">orftc@citizenstrade.org</a>><br class=""></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;" class=""><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);" class=""><b class="">Reply-To: </b></span><span style="font-family: -webkit-system-font, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, sans-serif;" class=""><<a href="mailto:tim.wise@tufts.edu" class="">tim.wise@tufts.edu</a>><br class=""></span></div><br class=""><div class="">
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<div class="moz-forward-container">Hi Arthur,<br class="">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" class="">
Fresh off in interesting trip to Mexico. I thought this piece
might be worth circulating on the CTC lists.<br class="">
Tim<br class="">
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<div class="field__item even" style="box-sizing:
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00:00:00 -0400" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span class="date-display-single" style="box-sizing:
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2018 00:00:00 -0400" style="box-sizing: border-box;"></time></span></div>
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zoom: 1;"><span class="pb-byline" itemprop="author" itemscopeitemtype="http://schema.org/Person" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://www.commondreams.org/" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background: transparent;
color: rgb(51, 102, 153); text-decoration: none;" class="">Common
Dreams</a></span></div>
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<h1 class="managed-node-title node__title" itemprop="headline" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 2.25rem; margin-top:
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line-height: 1em; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures:
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orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform:
none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration-style: initial;
text-decoration-color: initial;"><span itemprop="mainEntityOfPage" style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">'This
Is Life or Death for Us': Mexico's Farm Movement Rejects New
NAFTA Agreement</span></h1>
<div class=" field--label-hidden field--type-text-long
field field--name-field-subtitle" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-family:
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<div itemprop="description" style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;" class="">Donald
Trump and Enrique Peña Nieto, Mexico's lame-duck
conservative president, are trying to push through new
trade deal, but farmers are rising up in opposition</div>
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border-box; display: inline-block; vertical-align: middle;
zoom: 1;"><span class="pb-byline" itemprop="author" itemscopeitemtype="http://schema.org/Person" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://www.commondreams.org/author/timothy-wise" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; background:
transparent; color: rgb(51, 102, 153); text-decoration:
none;" class=""><span itemprop="name" style="box-sizing:
border-box;" class="">Timothy Wise</span></a><br class="">
</span></div>
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<div itemscopeitemprop="image" itemtype="http://schema.org/ImageObject" style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><img class="caption-processed" alt="Farm
leader Rocío Miranda speaks at the September 11 farmers’
movement press conference in Mexico City against the new
NAFTA agreement. (Timothy Wise) " style="box-sizing: border-box; border: 0px; max-width: 100%;" height="500" width="955" apple-inline="yes" id="BF467233-3E64-4DE2-B47F-08EF98DCA55A" apple-width="yes" apple-height="yes" src="cid:part3.03040208.04020604@tufts.edu"></div>
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<div class="field__item even" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Farm leader Rocío
Miranda speaks at the September 11 farmers’ movement
press conference in Mexico City against the new NAFTA
agreement. (Timothy Wise) </span></div>
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<div itemprop="articleBody" style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><p style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">The smooth ride to a
new North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) may have
just hit the bumpy roads of rural Mexico. On Tuesday,
leaders of Mexico’s farm movement strongly condemned the
new agreement announced between the United States and
Mexico, calling on the new president they supported in
recent elections to get involved and slow the race to
the new agreement.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">“We need to push our
new president to stop the signing of this agreement,”
said farm leader Gerónimo Jacobo in an interview. “This
is life or death for us. With NAFTA it will be a slow
death. Our national sovereignty is at stake here!”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">On August 27, U.S.
President Donald Trump announced he had reached a deal
with the Mexican government on a new version of the
NAFTA. In a garbled televised phone call, the president
congratulated lame duck Mexican President Enrique Peña
Nieto, claiming he had fulfilled his campaign promise to
“replace NAFTA” and christening the new deal “The
U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Agreement.” For his part, Peña
Nieto, whose party was trounced in July 1 elections,
claimed the agreement as his legacy.</p><div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); float: right; font-size: 18px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 20px 20px; text-align: right; width: 263.344px;" class="">What
was surprising to Mexico’s energized farm movement were
the anti-agriculture biases in the negotiated text.</div><p style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">No one, though, could
claim they actually had a new NAFTA. Canada, NAFTA’s
other commercial partner, was left out as President
Trump rushed to meet a self-declared deadline that would
allow the agreement to be signed by Peña Nieto, before
Andrés Manuel López Obrador takes office December 1.
Canada was offered the opportunity to join the
agreement, though negotiations continue.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Surprisingly,
representatives from the incoming government of López
Obrador (also known as AMLO) participated as observers
and endorsed the new agreement. Jesús Seade, López
Obrador’s designated NAFTA negotiator, raised a few
small issues in the last days of the negotiations, but
publicly supported the deal, a stance widely seen as
trying to ensure financial stability in the transition
to his new government. It was surprising because the
incoming president had been a strong critic of NAFTA in
the past.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold;" class="">Farmers:
Not so fast!</strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">What was surprising to
Mexico’s energized farm movement were the
anti-agriculture biases in the negotiated text. The
movement had gone all-out for López Obrador and his
Morena party, turning out more than 50% support across
rural Mexico, unprecedented in a country in which the
ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party tightly
controlled the rural vote. They did so because the
candidate had publicly signed on to their radical
program for farm reform, the Plan de Ayala 21st Century,
after Emiliano Zapata’s original rural reform program
early last century. (See<span class=""> </span><a moz-do-not-send="true" href="https://foodtank.com/news/2018/04/andres-manuel-lopez-obrador-regeneration-mexico-rural-agriculture-tim-wise/" style="box-sizing: border-box; background:
transparent; color: rgb(51, 102, 153);
text-decoration: none;" class="">my previous article</a>.)</p><div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); float: right; font-size: 18px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 20px 20px; text-align: right; width: 263.344px;" class="">The
Plan de Ayala also called for a renegotiation of NAFTA
to stop U.S. farm products from flooding Mexico with
cheap, subsidized crops.</div><p style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">The new program called
for support for small-scale farmers of maize and other
staple crops as part of a campaign to restore food
self-sufficiency in a country that now imports some 46%
of its food, mostly from the United States. The Plan de
Ayala also called for a renegotiation of NAFTA to stop
U.S. farm products from flooding Mexico with cheap,
subsidized crops.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">The new agreement fails
to allow Mexico to protect staple crops from such U.S.
agricultural dumping. New research from the Institute
for Agriculture and Trade Policy shows that U.S. maize
(corn) has been exported in the last three years at
prices 10% below what it cost to produce. Wheat has been
exported 33% below the costs of production, and rice as
also seen a dumping margin. All three crops are
priorities for López Obrador’s new Office of Food
Self-Sufficiency, to be headed by longtime farm leader
Victor Suárez.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">At Tuesday’s press
conference, farm movement leaders rejected the new deal
and called on the current government not to sign it,
deferring the decision to the new president with his
overwhelming mandate. (His party won 53% of the vote in
a five-person race and took majorities of seats in both
the House and the Senate.) In a statement, leaders said
NAFTA is responsible for the impoverishment of small and
medium-scale farmers.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">They denounced the new
agreements on biotechnology as a backdoor way to force
genetically modified maize and other crops into Mexico.
López Obrador has been clear since the election that his
administration will no longer allow the use of GM maize
and soybeans. Farmers fear the new NAFTA could compel
him to do so.</p><div style="box-sizing: border-box; color: rgb(17, 17, 17); float: right; font-size: 18px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 20px 20px; text-align: right; width: 263.344px;" class="">López
Obrador has been clear since the election that his
administration will no longer allow the use of GM maize
and soybeans. Farmers fear the new NAFTA could compel
him to do so.</div><p style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Similarly, there are
rumors that an annex to the agreement would bar Mexico
from putting labels on food packaging warning consumers
about fattening, sugary, and unhealthy food. In other
countries such measures have proven effective, and
Mexico faces a growing obesity epidemic attributed
significantly to imported processed food and sodas.
Another provision could make it difficult for the new
government to pay support prices to small-scale farmers
as a way to stimulate local production.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">With the actual text of
the agreement still secret, farm leaders demanded that
the full text be made public and that the new congress
hold hearings on the agreement before it is signed.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: bold;" class="">“We
have ghost towns because of NAFTA”</strong></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">“Peña Neto shouldn’t
sign it,” farm leader Rocío Miranda told me. “He has
presided over a terrible increase in hunger. We have
ghost towns in rural Mexico because of NAFTA.”</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Miranda said she is
very optimistic about the government’s commitment to
small-scale farmers. “The new government represents the
people harmed by NAFTA.” But she hopes López Obrador
will step in to ensure that the new NAFTA does not
contradict his ambitious rural agenda.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">“The farmers’ movement
is concerned,” she said, as negotiators wait to see if
Canada will sign on before the end of September. “The
new NAFTA could undermine our efforts to regain our food
self-sufficiency.”<br class="">
</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/09/13/life-or-death-us-mexicos-farm-movement-rejects-new-nafta-agreement">https://www.commondreams.org/views/2018/09/13/life-or-death-us-mexicos-farm-movement-rejects-new-nafta-agreement</a><br class="">
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