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When he came to Washington on Aug. 24, Mexican President-elect
Vicente Fox offered up for American ears what has become his most
controversial free-trade proposal:
Open the borders, he said.
It's a notion that fills some Florida farmers with dread.
Ever since the North American Free Trade Agreement went into
effect in 1994, some Florida growers of vegetables and fruit have
said the pact with Mexico and Canada would lead to unfair
competition and drive them out of business.
Now those growers face the imminent ascension into the
president's office in Mexico City of Fox, a former rancher and
Coca-Cola executive who wants to expand NAFTA into a European
Union-style common market, in which workers from Mexico, Canada and
the United States could cross each other's borders freely.
"It looks like we're going to have to compete on a world
market, because it looks like that's what everyone wants," said
Delray Beach grower David Neill.
With about 300 acres of tomato and cattle farms in Delray Beach,
and another 450 acres in pepper and strawberry fields on his
properties spread from Broward County to Fort Pierce, Neill worries
that Fox's focus on free trade will make things worse for struggling
U.S. growers.
"Obviously I hope that's not what it is, or I ought to be
selling out now," he said. "I hope I'm in a business I can
continue to operate and have my family stay in it."
Fox, 58, is the first candidate from a party other than the
ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to be elected to the
Mexican presidency since 1929. He has acknowledged that his proposal
is a long way from becoming reality. The day before visiting
President Clinton, Fox went to Canada for talks with Prime Minister
Jean Chretien, who frankly rejected the open-borders idea.
Mexico is the United States' second-largest trading partner;
Canada is the largest. The total value of trade with Mexico is
expected to reach about $240 billion this year.
Jose Zabalgoitia, minister of information at the Mexican Embassy
in Washington, said Americans should see an increase of products
made or partly made in Mexico on their store shelves after Fox takes
over.
"The people of Florida can expect a deepening of Mexico's
policies on free trade," he said.
That trade picture has grown more complex in recent days, and
over another hot spot for Florida agriculture -- the $2.1 billion
sugar industry.
Mexico seeks NAFTA's help
Mexico broke off trade talks in August over the issue of sugar
imports. Mexican officials maintain NAFTA allows them to dump about
600,000 tons of surplus sugar on the U.S. market beginning Oct. 1,
but U.S. officials say a "side agreement" in the pact
limits that to between 110,000 and 120,000 tons.
South Florida's sugar growers are standing firm against the idea
of any more sugar coming into a market already glutted with produce
from Florida cane and Midwest sugar beet growers. Low prices for raw
sugar already forced two Florida sugar growers to declare defaults
on their federal loans, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture
earlier this summer bought 132,000 tons of surplus American sugar in
a so-far futile attempt to drive up the price.
The sugar growers say they don't want the United States to allow
any Mexican sugar into the United States until the dispute is
resolved. Mexico has asked for a NAFTA mediation panel to fashion a
settlement. Industry and government leaders predict that will take
at least a year.
The disputes notwithstanding, the trade relationship between the
two countries appears to be progressing in Fox's direction.
A Florida government-business delegation traveled to Mexico in the
summer of 1999, and came away with $77 million worth of contracts
and agreements. Three Mexican states have since opened trade offices
in Florida, and an additional 500,000 tons of cargo from Mexico are
expected to arrive annually through commercial ports in the Tampa
Bay region.
A further $80 million to $100 million in business deals is in the
works, according to Enterprise Florida, the state's public-private
business promotion agency.
There also is plenty of movement in Mexico itself.
Enrique Ruelas, president of the Fresh Produce National Growers
and Exporters Association of Mexico, held the group's first-ever
exposition in Acapulco in August. About 5,000 industry
representatives attended, of whom about 50 were Americans.
He said plans are already being made for a second expo, this one
to be held in April at the Miami Convention Center. Ruelas said
about 20 Mexican growers looking to do business in the United States
-- and in Florida especially -- are expected to attend.
"They expect to find good buyers, instead of just (produce)
receivers," Ruelas said from his office in Guadalajara.
He said Mexican growers see Fox's election as the jump-start they
need, and they plan to take advantage of it in U.S. markets.
"Now that we have changed the government, we need to kick
some butt over there," Ruelas said.
David A. Gantz, associate director at the Tucson-based National
Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade, says Fox's election has
raised hopes in both countries. Fox is considered an impeccably
honest man whose election is seen as a virtual revolution after
decades of the corruption-ridden PRI.
"The good side is he won. The bad side is now he has to
govern. And that's going to be difficult," Gantz said. "I
hope he surrounds himself with good people. Because his major
problem is going to be fulfilling the high expectations."
`Even deal' free trade sought
J. Luis Rodriguez, owner of a Fort Lauderdale agricultural trade
firm and a spokesman for the Florida Farmers and Suppliers
Coalition, a growers' group, is skeptical that Fox's policies will
yield benefits for Florida growers.
Still, Rodriguez says: "We have to give him the benefit of
the doubt."
Other growers are more pessimistic.
"I am for free trade if it works as an even deal, but I
haven't seen it work that way," said Paul DiMare, chairman of
the Lake Worth-based farmers and suppliers coalition, whose family
has farmed in Florida since the 1940s.
Mark Robertson, a managing partner with Janus-Merritt Strategies in
Washington, counters that the response of U.S. growers to free trade
with Mexico is grounded more in emotion than facts.
"I think it's basic human nature," said Robertson,
whose firm lobbies for Mexican business interests, including sugar
growers. "It's more convenient for growers to point the finger
for their woes to their neighbors to the south. Because, frankly,
it's a politically popular thing to do."
Both sides fear competition
Zabalgoitia, the Mexican Embassy minister, said he understands
the anguish of U.S. farmers who speak out against Mexican
competition. Mexican farmers feel similarly about their American
counterparts, he said.
"I can tell you it's the very same -- when you ask Mexican corn
growers, they feel that the U.S. has the advantage," he said.
But Rodriguez, whose own Florida eggplant farm folded under
financial pressures several years ago, said he doubts American
farmers will see a restoration of what some consider the better
balance of trade that existed before NAFTA.
"I see the Florida industry trying to hold onto its market
share, or what's left. But I don't see us recuperating what's been
lost," he said.
Gantz, who serves on an international panel reviewing a major
trucking rights dispute between the United States and Mexico, says
trade differences are inevitable between the partners. What remains
to be seen is how Fox and the winner of the upcoming U.S.
presidential election deal with them.
"Regardless of who is in power, you're going to have trade
disputes on specific products," he said. "To some extent,
the new governments in the two countries might have a better chance
of (handling) it, but not necessarily."
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