The national campaign ‘Without Maize there is No Country’ published an open letter to demand the President to renegotiate the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which has been in force since 1994, with dramatic consequences for the Mexican peasants.

The local organizations asked to reopen the chapters on agriculture trade of the agreement, in order to protect the local production and the jobs of millions of peasants. They want a new cooperation era between Mexico and the US, based on sovereignty and development. They claim that the US people’s brave decision to end George W. Bush’s rule also inspired hope on the other side of the Bravo river.

However, the precedents of this relation could not be worse. The implementation of NAFTA led Mexico to import 42% of the food it consumes, with a $5.5 billion deficit in the agrifood balance of trade in 2008, according to the organizations.

“Mexico imports food, while it exports millions of peasants and rural residents”, the peasant groups say in the letter.

They also claoim that Mexican President Felipe Calderon is not a legitimate representative of the Mexican people and warn Obama about the lies he will listen on the outcome of fifteen years of implementation of NAFTA.

Calderon represents the vested interests of big agrifood corporations. This is why he will want to advise him on the convenience of having a trade deal, with the excuse that it has been very “useful” and that it is necessary to further promote the “failed free trade model”, they say.

Besides the actions of the ‘Without Maize there is No Country’ campaign, Obama’s visit had other repercussions in the Mexican civil society.

An organization of undocumented immigrants demanded changes in the migration policies outside the US embassy, while mine workers who have been on strike for two years also came to the embassy to report the fraud committed by Mexican businessmen in Texas.