California Growers Fearful of Mexico Trade Concessions

A committee of California agribusiness interests is asking the Bush Administration to avoid making unilateral trade concessions to Mexico.

The members fear the Administration would tend to protect major American crops, mainly grains, at the expense of California’s specialty fruits and vegetables which Mexico also grows in abundance and increasingly exports to the United States.

The Californians, calling themselves the Cal-Ag Committee on International Trade, drafted a brief urging American trade representatives to avoid any unilateral trade agreements until completion of the latest round of trade talks among most of the world’s nations, called the Uruguay Round.

Faster Pace Seen

The Cal-Ag committee worries that an attempt will be made to “accelerate” future trade concessions between Mexico and the United States while talk of broader concessions involving many nations still is under way in the Uruguay Round.

“The acceleration concept is extremely vague, and it has not been satisfactorily defined in a specific sense,” says the Cal-Ag Committee’s brief. Chairman Bruce Obbink, head of the California Table Grape Commission, says growers of specialty crops organized the group a decade ago to hire experts who could give them “an early warning signal” about any trade talks that might hurt them.

“For Mexico, the issue of accelerating any kind of trade concessions presents a number of concerns,” the committee’s brief states. “Mexican agriculture benefits from a broad array of agricultural subsidies.”

But, the brief adds, there is “an appalling lack of documentation” about Mexico’s subsidies, so phasing in concessions now would let many of them escape the attempt to reduce or eliminate subsidies on imports.

“Likewise, there is a dearth of information concerning Mexico’s production capacity,” the committee’s brief continues. “Consequently, it is difficult to know the probable economic effect of any trade concessions on the U.S. agricultural sector.”

The committee expresses doubt that the United States would agree to end grain subsidies in a bilateral agreement with Mexico although that is the logical result of the Uruguay Round, in which the United States is calling for all nations to phase out agricultural subsidies.

The committee contended that “any type of free trade agreement (with Mexico) will benefit American producers of subsidized grains at the expense of California specialty crops that receive no subsidies. . . . Consequently, California fruits and vegetables will pay for the trade deal.”

The Cal-Ag committee feels “it would be terribly inequitable to lower tariffs on fruits and vegetables while not simultaneously eliminating agricultural subsidies on grains.”

The committee points out that Mexican exports of fresh produce to the United States already have increased from 27 commodities worth $379 million in 1980 to 40 commodities worth $602 million last year.

“There is no compelling reason to offer them even more advantageous access until the Uruguay Round is completed,” the Cal-Ag committee concludes.