Mexico's government in transition phase on ag trade issues

Mexico is U.S. agriculture’s second largest export market estimated by USDA at $19.0 billion for the fiscal year ending September 30. The election of Enrique Pena Nieto of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) will result in a change on Dec. 1 in the political party controlling the presidency for the first time in twelve years. Contentious agricultural trade policy issues do exist between the two countries, but no sharp changes in agricultural imports are expected. Mexico has been a growing market for U.S. agricultural exports increasing from $12.4 billion in FY 2007 to $17.7 billion in FY 2011. Part of the increase in purchases this year is due to the devastating drought that Mexico suffered last year and a decline in corn production. Through the first eight months of the fiscal year, exports of coarse grains, the largest category of exports to Mexico, are up 45 percent to $2.5 billion from the same eight months last year. Wheat sales, the fifth largest product, are up 35 percent to $780 million, while dairy products, the fourth largest category, are up 27 percent to $840 million. Poultry meat, the sixth largest commodity, is also up 27 percent to $660 million. Red meat sales, the second largest sales category, are up 17 percent to $1.4 billion. Soybeans, the third largest category, are up just 1 percent at $1.2 billion...more