Context of 'January 30, 2003: Farmers Protest NAFTA in Mexico City'

In preparation for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Mexico opens up its financial services to foreign ownership. By 2000, 85 percent of the banking system will be owned by foreign entities and lending to Mexican businesses will have dropped from 10 percent of the GDP to 0.3 percent. [Jones, 3/2007, pp. 3]

The North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act (H.R. 3450) is voted on by the US House of Representatives and passes 234-200. [US Congress, 11/17/1993] It is later estimated that Congresspersons who voted in favor of H.R. 3450 received an average of $8,018 more in corporate PAC contributions than those who voted against. [Francia, 1/2001, pp. 98, 103]

US President Bill Clinton signs the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which he says will “tear down trade barriers between” the US, Canada, and Mexico. [US President, 12/8/1993]

A 15-year period begins during which most trade barriers between the US, Canada, and Mexico will be dismantled in accordance with NAFTA. The New York Times comments: “The government has taken few steps, however, to prepare smaller and medium-sized companies, poor farmers, and inefficient industries for the new competition. Even after a wave of industrial restructuring that cost half a million Mexican jobs, worker re-training programs are almost nonexistent.” [New York Times, 1/1/1994]

Around 100,000 farm workers march to the main square of Mexico City to protest the removal of duties on farm imports that occurred just weeks earlier (see January 1, 1994). They demand that the government renegotiate NAFTA to better protect Mexican agricultural producers. [Houston Chronicle, 2/1/2003; Fanjul and Fraser, 8/2003, pp. 23 ]

The Mexican government, after weeks of negotiation with protesting farmers (see January 30, 2003), signs the National Rural Accord (also known as the National Agreement for the Countryside and the Development of Rural Society). The accord announces that the government will make “sweeping changes to rural infrastructure and state farm policy to modernize Mexico’s outdated agricultural system.” As part of the agreement, Mexico will also ask the US and Canada to allow for protection of Mexico’s rural economy, and review the possibility of implementing mechanisms against dumping and unfair competition. [Reuters, 4/28/2003; Fanjul and Fraser, 8/2003, pp. 23 ]

In response to a suggestion by Mexico that it will put tariffs on corn to protect domestic farmers from subsidized US corn (see April 28, 2003), the Chairman of the US Senate Committee on Finance, Charles Grassley, writes a letter to Mexican officials stating: “Mexico has recently undertaken a number of actions against US agricultural products that undermine the spirit, if not the law, of NAFTA. Mexico’s continued pattern of not meeting its international trade negotiations is unacceptable.” [Fanjul and Fraser, 8/2003, pp. 23 ]