A large delegation of farmers from the National Front To Save the Mexican Countryside (FNRCM) and leaders of the National Association of Freight Haulers (ANTAC) were back in Mexico City this week to present the government with the outlines of the policy shift required to protect their livelihoods from destruction at the hands of financial speculators, the multinational cartels and, for the truckers in particular, organized crime.
The farmers came prepared with an eight-point program which states their intent to save the nation, not just themselves, “in the face of the intense offensive by the U.S. government to take over the entire national agri-food market.” That U.S. policy was stated “openly” in the Trump administration’s new National Security Strategy, they point out, and was “also reflected in the hearings held and sponsored by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in early December 2025.”
The delegation held a tense, seven-hour meeting on Dec. 10 with a Deputy Secretary of Agriculture assigned by the government to listen, but not negotiate, which went nowhere. On Dec. 11, the delegation of some 25 or more farmers and truckers held a press conference before the Monument to the Revolution in the nation’s capital, where they issued an ultimatum to the government: Either negotiate seriously by Dec. 16, or we take to the streets again, blocking national highways, customs booths along the border, and this time possibly the U.S. and Canadian Embassies in Mexico City. We are prepared to do so through Christmas and New Years, “if necessary,” they announced.