Exclusive: As Trump trashes NAFTA, Mexico turns to Brazilian corn

[riversedge]

February 22, 2018 / 6:35 AM / 9 days ago

Exclusive: As Trump trashes NAFTA, Mexico turns to Brazilian corn

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trump-effect-corn-exclusive/exclusive-as-trump-trashes-nafta-mexico-turns-to-brazilian-corn-idUSKCN1G61J4


P.J. Huffstutter, Adriana Barrera



CHICAGO/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican buyers imported ten times more corn from Brazil last year amid concern that NAFTA renegotiations could disrupt their U.S. supplies, according to government data and top grains merchants.



Mexico is on track to buy more Brazilian corn in 2018, which would hurt a U.S. agricultural sector already struggling with low grains prices and the rising competitive threat from South America.

U.S. farmers, food processors and grain traders have spent months trying to prevent trade relationships from falling apart if the North American Free Trade Agreement implodes. They are trying to protect more than $19 billion in sales to Mexican buyers of everything from corn and soybeans to dairy and poultry.

Despite their efforts, South American corn shipments to Mexico are surging. Mexican buyers imported a total of more than 583,000 metric tonnes of Brazilian corn last year – a 970 percent jump over 2016, according to data from Mexico’s Agrifood and Fishery Information Service (SIAP).

The purchases all came in the last four months of last year. They followed visits by Mexican government officials and grains buyers to Brazil and Argentina to explore alternative supply options in the months after U.S. President Donald Trump took office and threatened to tear up the trade pact.

Mexico has long been the top importer of U.S. corn, and is the second largest buyer of U.S. soybeans, giving Mexico leverage in corn-belt states that are staunch Trump supporters but also strongly back the trade status quo.

Mexico’s Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo, who is overseeing Mexico’s NAFTA neogitating team, encouraged the country’s major grain buyers last year to explore South American corn to strengthen his hand at the negotiating table, saying the country needed a“Plan B” in case Washington pulled out of the trade deal.

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“We bought from Brazil for two reasons,” said Edmundo Miranda, commercial director of Grupo Gramosa, one of Mexico’s top grains merchants.“One, because it was competitive. Two, to see how practical and profitable it was to buy from Brazil or Argentina given the possibility of trade tariffs because of NAFTA renegotiations.”

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Trump has said he will scrap NAFTA if his administration cannot negotiate trade terms with Mexico and Canada that are more favorable to the United States. The next round of talks is later this month.

An end to NAFTA, farm and trade groups say, would likely lead to increased tariffs on grains trade, hurting one of the electoral constituencies that carried Trump to power. During his campaign, Trump promised farming communities that agriculture would benefit from his presidency.
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[SummerSnow]

1. No way he can be re-elected

[yardwork]

2. Don't underestimate the brainwashing and false information half of America consumes

[left-of-center2012]

3. I also heard ...

Heard or read a couple weeks ago that Mexico is expanding trade with China,
due to Trump's policies.

Guess Trump yelling and screaming at the Mexican President on the phone,
at least twice in a year, isn't helpful.

Former Mexican President Fox said (on with Maher recently) Trump told the current Mexican President:
"I'm the leader of the most powerful country on Earth. You need to do what I say!"

And Trump was told in response "That's not how diplomacy works."

[Wounded Bear]

7. Trashing TPP was a huge wet kiss to China...

Trump and his followers are idiots. For all of its problems TPP was a way to counter China's expansion in the Pacific Rim.

Fail.

[Vinca]

4. Take that you idiot Iowa Trump humping corn farmers.

[Adrahil]

5. Plenty on DU think trashing NAFTA is a good plan. NT

[Wounded Bear]

6. Welcome to Trumponomics...

[dalton99a]

8. "How stupid are the people of Iowa?"