Trump’s playing chicken with Nafta could hit the US poultry industry hard
Palestine, Texas/Mexico City — Workers at the Sanderson Farms plant in Palestine, Texas, are cutting up chickens for export to Mexico, a market that has become a pillar of the town’s economy and a key focus of the US poultry sector. The facility’s roughly 1,000 employees process a quarter of a million chickens a day, with parts zipping along racks to a packing area where legs and thighs are prepared for delivery to the US’s southern neighbour. But the Mexican market may find its way to the chopping block if talks to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) collapse and US President Donald Trump makes good on a threat to pull out of the 1994 deal with Canada and Mexico. The stakes are high for the US poultry sector, which exports products worth more than $1bn a year to Mexico. Mexico could slap a 75% tariff on US chicken and turkey under its commitments to World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, compared to the 20% tax on imports the Latin American nation could apply...
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