Thread: Two chicken stories: NAFTA’s real winners and losers

Don't like the pitch for amnesty, but interesting reading:
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mehrnews.com
2008/05/28

By Laura Carlsen
Two chicken stories: NAFTA’s real winners and losers

TEHRAN, May 28 (MNA) -- Pedro Martin works on a chicken farm just outside the village of Pegueros, Jalisco. The state of Jalisco ranks among Mexico’s top chicken-producing states, providing the nation with 11% of all chicken meat produced.

Many of Pedro’s friends and relatives have already left Pegueros, pushed up north by the bleak joblessness and poverty of their hometown. But Pedro told the Washington Post that he’s determined to stick it out in Mexico.

For many years, he and his co-workers had little reason to even consider making the dangerous trek across the border. They made a decent living at the chicken farm, and the locally-produced chickens found a steady market in the region.

But since all protective tariff barriers to U.S. imports were removed on January 1st of this year, Pedro’s not sure he’ll have a job anymore. Chicken wasn’t originally on the list for final tariff elimination in 2008. It was slated for zero tariffs and import controls for the year 2003.

Faced with an influx of U.S. chicken exports, the industry convinced the Mexican government that “imports cause a threat of serious damage to the national industry.â€

TEHRAN, May 28 (MNA)?????????

Tehran Times is a Iran newspaper covering general news.
The web site is presented in English.

http://www.mondotimes.com/1/world/ir/233/all/12128

Laura Carlsen is director of the Americas Policy Program (www.americaspolicy.org) in Mexico City. The Americas Mexico Blog is found at www.americasmexico.blogspot.com.

(May 29 Tehran Times Opinion Column, by Laura Carlsen)

http://www.mehrnews.ir/en/NewsDetail.aspx?NewsID=691794

Is it not odd in a Tehran, Iran newspaper's opinion column, there is a discussion about NAFTA and Mexican chickens?