Activities in Mexico against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) are far from concluding, though a farmers' protest on Mexico-U.S. border ended on Wednesday.
The protest ended after some 200 Mexican farmers had blocked the Cordoba-Americas bridge linking the country with the United States for 36 hours since Tuesday.
Mexico lifted its last protective tariffs on imported agricultural products as corn, beans and sugar under NAFTA which was signed in 1994 by the United States, Canada and Mexico after several years of negotiations.
Mexican farmers said the elimination of tariffs would make their products incapable of competing with the U.S. products as the latter receive U.S. government's subsidies.
In the state of Guanajuato, Archbishop Jose Guadalupe Martin on Wednesday called on the Mexican government to meet the farmers' demand, warning of "serious and real risks" as the Mexican agricultural sector cannot compete with those products from the United States and Canada, the Latin American News Agency reported on Wednesday.
A new demonstration will be staged in the Mexican capital in demand for a renegotiation of the agreement, announced on Wednesday by Artemio Ortiz, general secretary of the National Coordinating Office of Educators.
Farmers in Guerrero state and some university students on Wednesday gathered in Chipalcingo downtown, protesting the agreement, it reported.
The National Association of Agricultural Commercializing Firms said free import of corn and beans is a "real economic and social catastrophe" which will result in national insecurity and a damage to the country's administration.
Under NAFTA, most barriers to trade and investment among the three countries should be removed.
Corn, beans, sugar and milk were granted a special 15-year import protection when the agreement was negotiated in 1993, time that was supposed to be used to prepare Mexico for the competition. Tuesday was the end of the period.
Source: Xinhua
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