Mexican Border Standoff Averted

Farm groups and the Mexican government agreed Monday to hold talks on a farming accord, avoiding protests that threatened to block its border with the United States.

Mexican Economy Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez mentioned the possibility of renegotiating North American Free Trade Agreement requirements that require tariffs on U.S. farm products to be lifted.

However, Mexican chicken farmers received the best news from an unlikely place: the U.S. poultry industry. The National Chicken Council has asked the U.S. government to begin talks with Mexico on maintaining and possibly even increasing Mexican tariffs on U.S. chicken exports.

Farming groups had threatened to shut down the U.S.-Mexican border on Wednesday — the day the tariffs are to be lifted.

But facing an expected crackdown by Mexican authorities and a willingness by President Vicente Fox to negotiate a farm accord, farm groups said Monday they dropped plans for protests and road blocks.

Instead, they want to continue talks with Fox's government until Jan. 20, at which time they will decide whether to take action. The next round of talks was scheduled for Thursday.

Mexican farmers have argued that, without the tariffs, they won't be able to compete with their U.S. counterparts.

U.S. companies depend on Mexico as a leading poultry buyer, especially of chicken parts like wings and legs — which are often cheaper from U.S. exporters than from Mexican producers.

In a statement sent out late Monday, Derbez said the Mexican government would look at the possibility of changing the NAFTA provisions.

"We aren't saying that we are going to ask for a revision right now," he said. "We are saying that we are going to work together with the groups present here to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages that it would represent for the country."

Some economists speculate that U.S. poultry producers support the tariffs because U.S. poultry giants that own processing plants and raise poultry in Mexico want to shield those operations from losses.

The chicken dispute is not the only area where NAFTA has run into trouble. On the American side of the border, the Bush administration has jostled with truckers' unions and environmentalists over when and how to allow more Mexican trucks — which some say are less safe and more dirty than American rigs — to drive deeper into the country.