The National Union of Agricultural Workers (UNTA) warned Monday that the country faces a “food catastrophe” being the main corn buyer and other grains in the United States, which can be used as “a pressure weapon”, in the midst of the imposition of tariffs by the government of the US president, Donald Trump.
The leader of the UNTA, Álvaro López Ríos, said in a statement that “the United States can use food as a pressure weapon to put on your knees,” and considered that, despite having obtained a 90 -day extension for the application of new tariffs, the Mexican government has put on “knees before the offensives that the US president has launched.”
“There is a false speech to face, but in the background what is done is blind obedience to what the ‘North American’ ogro poses,” said López Ríos.
The leader stressed that the 90 -day term announced last week by Trump after holding a phone call with the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, implies that Mexico must review non -tariff barriers, such as the use of glyphosate that, so far, is prohibited in Mexico.
He explained that “the Mexican countryside faces a double speech”, because “while the United States hardens controls, it raises tariffs and blocks the passage to key products such as tomato or cattle, its agriculture department displays a commercial offensive to sell more in Mexico.”
He also said that EU “questions the Mexican agriculture but lives on this one”, since in 2024, Mexico bought United States agricultural products for more than 30,000 million dollars and generated 190,000 jobs in that country.
He added that “Trump has the agriculture under threat of tariffs”, after last March “he asked the great farmers of his country to prepare to produce more to sell within the United States.”
“Although not yet concrete, his legal team explores the possibility of imposing general tariffs on the sector,” he warned.
Therefore, the agricultural leader announced a “national mobilization” from Tuesday 12 to Thursday, August 14 “whose final destination is the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (Sader)” of Mexico City, “where in plant the members of the UNTA will require the head of the Sader, Julio Berdegué Sacristán, to stop the fact that Mexico is the first importer of food.”
He said that Mexico was the main general client of American agriculture in the commercial year 2023/2024, buying 35 million TM products, more than double the next country in importance, according to the EU grain council (USGC).
With EFE information.
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