Mexican Threat

Recently, government officials in Mexico plan to introduce legislation that would stop corn imports from the United States and instead have the country buy its corn from Argentina and Brazil. I asked Dr. Jaya Jha (Cha) Professor of Economics at Colby College what the reasoning was behind this potential move: "I think it is a retaliation to these proposed NAFTA changes or at least it is a threat to retaliate. If Trump is trying to renegotiate NAFTA and trying to impose tariffs on goods coming from Mexico, mostly manufacturing products coming from Mexico into the United States. There are two sides to it. One is how it affects the United States and the other is how does it affect Mexico. First of all, Mexico's a very important agricultural trading partner with the US, not just for corn but over all. Secondly, corn is a very important agricultural component of total agricultural exports. It accounts for approximately 10% of total value of US agriculture. The third aspect here is that Mexico is a very important importer of US corn. Mexico accounts for nearly 25% of US corn exports. So if Mexico stops importing or imposes some sort of a tariff to US corn, it hurts US corn farmers and it hurts US agriculture.