Replies

This isn't related to NAFTA, it's related to the price of corn being high in the US, and due to the push toward ethanol (E85 fuel etc) this problem isn't going away. There are other problems in Mexico which are also partly to blame:

Mexico to legalize drugs, Measure decriminalizes personal use
Posted on 04/29/2006 2:37:45 AM EDT by South40
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1623630/posts

Mexico legal-drug bill condemned (OK Personal Use)
San Diego Union | April 29, 2006 | Tony Manolatos, Anna Cearley and Pauline Repard
Posted on 04/29/2006 10:38:33 AM EDT by radar101
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1623715/posts

U.S. cautious on Mexico plan to legalize drugs
MSNBC.com | April 29, 2006 | Staff
Posted on 04/30/2006 2:12:05 PM EDT by CrawDaddyCA
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1624194/posts

Mexico's Fox to OK drug decriminalization law
Reuters | 3 May 2006
Posted on 05/02/2006 9:08:26 PM EDT by Aussie Dasher
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1625661/posts

What the heck do Mexican personal use drug laws have to do with the price of corn? That's their business. When Mexican organized crime bring drugs in this country and distribute them it's our business, but that's an entirely different topic.

As for the price of corn in this country being high, I would argue that it's still actually pretty darned low. Corn prices are up some now, mostly because of lower than expected yields last year caused by drought conditions and speculation about how much corn the ethanol industry will use, but in the grand scheme of things corn is still cheap in this country when you look at historical prices and factor in inflation. Corn prices had been staying around the same with minor fluctuations for a decade or more even though everything else has gotten more expensive, including the costs involved with growing the corn and getting it to market. What's happened is that American farmers have been perhaps too good at growing corn. They've overproduced and that has driven prices down. The government is in large part to blame for this because they've used subsidies to ensure that corn farmers make it even though they keep driving prices down. The government will set a target price for corn, a price they think farmers need to get to stay in business, and then when the market price is lower than the target price they'll pay subsidies on every bushel of corn produced to make up the difference between the target price and the actual market price. This encourages farmers to overproduce.

The price of corn going up is actually not such a bad thing. The higher the price of a bushel of corn, the less the government will pay in crop subsidies. Not only that, but farmers in other corn producing nations that complain about our subsidized corn flooding foreign markets will actually be in a lot better shape now because they will be able to get a fair price for their product. Then maybe, just maybe, we'll see less migrant workers form Mexico coming up here for work because their will be work for them at home.

This isn't related to NAFTA, it's related to the price of corn being high in the U.S.

Yes, it is. Mexico, under NAFTA agreements, ended agricultural subsidies. The U.S. and Canada both continued them, often under different names (fuel subsidies for farmers, corporate tax breaks for agribiz, etc.) This is a HUGE issue in most of the world.

The reporting on drug laws was misleading. The Fox administration's iniatives would have ended the loophole under which people avoided prosecution by claiming very large amounts of controlled substances were for "personal use." Mexico -- and a lot of other countries -- allow what in the U.S. would be an "affirmative defense" in drug possession cases for "medical necessity." The proposed laws simply spelled out what was the largest amount of substances that could be considered under that defense. Somehow, the U.S. press got it bass-ackwards and reported it as "legalizing" those substances. NOT THAT IT HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE PRICE OF CORN... though, narcotics are probably the only agricultural produce Mexican farmers can sell without running into barriers put up to protect agribiz.

This isn't related to NAFTA, it's related to the price of corn being high in the U.S.

Yes, it is. Mexico, under NAFTA agreements, ended agricultural subsidies. The U.S. and Canada both continued them, often under different names (fuel subsidies for farmers, corporate tax breaks for agribiz, etc.) This is a HUGE issue in most of the world.

The reporting on drug laws was misleading. The Fox administration's iniatives would have ended the loophole under which people avoided prosecution by claiming very large amounts of controlled substances were for "personal use." Mexico -- and a lot of other countries -- allow what in the U.S. would be an "affirmative defense" in drug possession cases for "medical necessity." The proposed laws simply spelled out what was the largest amount of substances that could be considered under that defense. Somehow, the U.S. press got it bass-ackwards and reported it as "legalizing" those substances. NOT THAT IT HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE PRICE OF CORN... though, narcotics are probably the only agricultural produce Mexican farmers can sell without running into barriers put up to protect agribiz.