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By Weekly Archive On Jan 15, 2008

“Without
corn there is no homeland, neither without bean.” And without
petroleum?

Ordinarily,
little is said in the international media about the North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Canada and
Mexico, which became effective Jan. 1, 1994.

Recently,
more has been printed about the ASPNA (Alliance for the Security and
Prosperity of North America), a monstrosity intended to strengthen
the neoliberal model and U.S. domination over the other two partners.

The
enactment of the NAFTA coincided with the uprising of the Zapatistas
in Chiapas and a major crisis in the Mexican economy, which provoked
an urgent intervention by the government of William Clinton, which
provided a loan of more than $14 billion so Mexico could get out of
its mess.

The
consequences of that economic disaster ("the tequila effect")
lasted for a long time. Today, 14 years and a few days later, very
few people remember those events. The Zapatistas make the headlines
once in a while.

Now,
the NAFTA has again attracted the attention of the media, as one of
the clauses of the treaty takes effect in Mexico. That clause frees
from import tariffs several agricultural products from the United
States and Mexico, among them corn and beans, two of the main
products of Mexican agriculture.

The
media attention is directed not so much at the activation of that
clause but at the protests it has raised among peasant organizations
and agrarian labor unions, which see competition from U.S. and
Canadian products as a serious threat to their economies.

To
them, it is impossible to compete, because of the differences in
technical development and because U.S. agricultural products are
subsidized. In 2006 alone, the U.S. government distributed $18
billion among U.S. farmers.

According
to leaders of peasant organizations, since the NAFTA was signed, two
million jobs have been lost in Mexican farms, the prices of farm
products fell between 40 percent and 70 percent, and Mexico’s
alimentary dependence on the United States rose by 40 percent in
2006.

So
far, the mobilization of farmers throughout Mexico to demand a
renegotiation of the NAFTA, including a demonstration in the capital
and a human wall in the city of Juárez, on the border with the
U.S., have been unsuccessful.

Through
its Secretary of Agriculture, the Mexican government has said that
the NAFTA has brought more benefits than ills, and that Mexican
production and the agricultural industry are doing well. Many
analysts and observers counter that that assertion is either wrong or
does not match reality.

According
to some critics of the Mexican governments (from Salinas de Gortari
to this date), it was no coincidence that the signing of the NAFTA
was preceded by an amendment to Article 27 of the Constitution, which
forbade the sale of the "ejidos," or communal lands.

Those
critics say that the objective of Salinas de Gortari, Zedillo, Fox
and now Felipe Calderón was — and is — to remove the largest
possible number of people from the countryside, thus permitting the
food transnational corporations to assume control of the Mexican
agricultural industry.

Whether
that’s true or not, I don’t know, but if we analyze how the big U.S.
food producers and marketers today control the distribution of food
in Mexico, it might be true. Only one of those companies is
Mexican-owned.

In
an article published in the daily La Jornada, titled "Agriculture
and free trade: a fallacy," journalist Luis Hernández
Serrano points out that "According to information from the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, the agricultural food trade balance
between Mexico and the United States clearly represents a deficit for
our country. It has been so ever since the start of the NAFTA. Until
October 2007, Mexican imports totaled more than $10.487 billion,
while exports barely added up to $8.479 billion.

"The
same has happened since 1994. National purchases of food products to
our neighbor totaled about $10.881 billion in 2006 and sales rose to
$9.39 billion. In 2005, we imported $9.429 billion and exported $8.33
billion."

Hernández
Serrano adds that what somewhat saves Mexico’s food trade balance
with the United States is the sale of beer, which in 2006 amounted to
$1.3 billion. One might inquire if beer production remains in Mexican
hands or if it went to foreign hands, like almost all other
industries.

Even
before the clause on the most sensitive farm products went into
effect, the NAFTA had caused the ruination of 40 percent of Mexican
farmers, several million people and a massive exodus from the
countryside to the cities. Not to mention an increase in the number
of people who want to enter the U.S. illegally.

According
to some Mexican media, beginning in 1994, the Mexican authorities
permitted the importation of corn and beans from the United States
and Canada without charging tariffs, thus violating the rules
established in the NAFTA itself. The same happened with rice, cotton
and milk, products that Mexico used to export.

So,
it is difficult to think that the current Mexican government will
renegotiate the NAFTA with the United States and Canada. Rather, it
may do everything possible to comply with the accord, no matter what
the consequences.

The
small and midsize farmer (with less than 100 hectares of land) is
sentenced to ruination, because he cannot compete with U.S. farmers,
particularly with the big producers and marketers of food, who are
investing large sums of money in the Mexican agriculture.

Another
issue at hand is the complaint by Mexican farmers about the use of
genetically modified seeds, to the detriment of the homegrown seeds,
which are beginning to disappear. To utilize those seeds means to
depend, from now on, on companies like Monsanto, Cargill, Bayer or
BASF, because the resulting product is a hybrid seed, that is, it
cannot be planted again.

If
you think of a policy designed so that the big transnational
corporations may control Mexican agriculture, in collusion with the
Mexican oligarchy, you will not be far from the truth. The NAFTA is
the best expression of neoliberalism; the ASPNA is its purest
application.

"The
fields can take no more," says one of the slogans of the peasant
protests. The next most used is "without corn, there is no
country; without beans, the same." The slogans are accurate.
But, what about without crude oil?

For
years now, Mexican personalities from all political parties have been
denouncing the systematic policy of the government to privatize
Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX), an endeavor prohibited by the
Constitution and something that no government has convinced the
Congress to amend.

Nevertheless,
the different governments have created the conditions for such a
privatization in a not-too-distant future. For example, little by
little, they have postponed the necessary repairs and expansions of
the industries that carry out the extraction, transportation and
refinement of crude oil and natural gas.

They
have also plunged PEMEX into debt, with the objective of eventually
provoking the "necessary" intervetion of private
enterprises. Last year, PEMEX’s debt amounted to $107 billion. A
paradoxical fact about that policy of privatization is that PEMEX
contributes more than 50 percent of the state budget.

On
Jan. 9, the Coordinating Commission for the Defense of Petroleum
(CCDP) called for a national movement to denounce the delivery of
Mexican crude to the foreign transnational corporations, even when
the Constitution forbids it.

The
reason for the call was the enactment of a contract given to Energy
Maintenance to provide security to more than half of PEMEX’s oil
pipeline. According to the CCDP, the transaction initiated the
transfer of PEMEX’s strategic zones to private companies — a
concession that violates the Mexican Constitution.

The
CCDP also pointed out that, for the past 25 years, the neoliberal
governments have been looking for a pretext to privatize crude oil
and electricity and that now they are drafting laws to permit a
greater private participation in that industry.

The
most significant aspect of the complaint is that PEMEX’s leadership
has kept secret its links to five foreign oil companies. PEMEX
directors even made a commitment to those foreign firms not to report
those links to the Federal Institute of Access to Information.

According
to the CCDP, PEMEX signed the accords and agreed to pay a fine if it
broke its pact of silence with Royal Dutch Shell (Anglo-Dutch),
Chevron (U.S.), Nexen (Canada) and Statoil (Norway).

I
think you will agree with me that PEMEX"s privatization is
closer at hand than most people think, unless the Mexican people and
progressive organizations form a common front to prevent that event.

The
tendency of some sectors of the oligarchy and bourgeoisie to sell
their country away is surprising. But let’s not forget what happened
in Argentina during the military dictatorship and later, during the
10 years of Carlos Menem’s administration. They simply sold
everything to foreign companies.

Sometimes
we forget that neoliberalism is not only an economic model. It is
also an ideology that places the free market, business, above any
other consideration, be it nationalist or patriotic.

If
the alimentary transnationals manage to control the Mexican
agriculture and oil is privatized, how much economic and political
independence would Mexico retain? It would become practically annexed
to the United States, but with a dividing wall that would prevent
Mexicans from crossing the border. The people of Juárez do not
deserve that fate.