NAFTA Will Boost Mexican Emigration to US

Mexico, Dec 16 (Prensa Latina) Mexican emigration to the United States will increase as of January 2008, when the tariffs on corn and beans will be lifted within the framework of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), expert Steve Suppan said on Saturday.


In statements to Prensa Latina, the experts from the Institute of Agricultural and Commercial Policies, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the United States, described rural migrations caused the NAFTA as the migration crisis that broke out in 1994, when the first NAFTA adjustments were made.



"There are many Mexican workers with little options and they resort to the hard march to the North seeking higher wages to help their families in their communities of origin," he noted.



Suppan noted that the situation will worsen as 300,000 farmers and 200,000 people from Mexican cities are expected to emigrate, due to the lack of development opportunities.



Experts are concerned at a forced economic exodus to the United States, a situation that will increase food insecurity in Mexico, he said.



The big economy will flood the small economy with its products and tragedy will mostly affect indigenous groups who had guarded their basic resources for humankind but are starving at present.



The governments of the United States, Canada and Mexico could renegotiate the NAFTA if they took into account the harm they are causing to the disposed, because only the big private consortiums will benefit instead of farmers and small businesspeople.



Suppan referred to the world campaign in favor of preserving food resources, especially corn, as a human right of economic use, and pointed out that the campaign could even be taken to the United Nations if there were political will.

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