Why are tortilla prices shooting up?

Three U.S. articles attribute the rise to many factors, but a common thread in all is price fixing by the companies that process/import corn for tortillas.

The Mx. government was asked to put a price control on tortillas, the main staple for poos Mexicans but it refused, instead it said it put a task force into the field to prevent proce gouging.

Economists across the board both NOB and in Mx. say that depending on what Trump does, Mx. could go into a recession in 2017. Will he actually (try to) build a wall and/or sign an Executive Order pulling out of NAFTA?

2017 Will be a real roller-coaster ride for both Mexicans and expats.

And for those who are thinking of turning their saved pesos into USD - - - be ready to take a real bath, especially if you will need to buy pesos later.

Trump just recently threatened BMW with 35% duties on any cars built in Mexico if they go ahead with their billion $$ plant in San Luis and he already scared off Ford and Chevrolet.

Ford says their decision to cancel their plant in MX had nothing to do with Trump and everything to do with finances and logistics.

Of course, that is not what Trump says!

The last time the U.S. was in a trade war was just before the Great Depression of 1929. Enough said?

And, that was just before 1933, which was just before 1939..........

Clueless wrote:Three U.S. articles attribute the rise to many factors, but a common thread in all is price fixing by the companies that process/import corn for tortillas.

The Mx. government was asked to put a price control on tortillas, the main staple for poos Mexicans but it refused, instead it said it put a task force into the field to prevent proce gouging.

My understanding is that many staple prices are set by the govt. Such as tortillas, bread, beans, rice, oil, etc.

Tortillas carry a subsidy period and they "always" go up in January (as do many other items). Because of the heavy increase in gasoline it is only expected that any increases this year will be "significant. Why try to shift the blame game to the USA?

Tortilla is made with maseca flour which comes from the corn from the US..with the way dollar is going that would drive the prices up ,no?
Thanks to NAFTA the corn in the US is cheaper than in Mexico and the corn farmers from the US drove many farmers down here out of business.. or the farmers down here could not compete and quit growing corn so whichever way you look at it , it is not good for the price of tortilla--

"Let them eat cake"

Everything coming from the US is going up. Noticed that US cigarettes went up 2P per pack today.

http://m.world-grain.com/Departments/Country-Focus/Country-Focus-Home/Mexico-2016.aspx?cck=1

FYI..

Steven Zahniser and William Coyle
Abstract
Although the growing U.S.-Mexico corn trade has changed significantly since
the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, it
retains many of its pre-trade-liberalization characteristics. The majority of U.S.
corn exports to Mexico still consists of yellow corn, which is primarily used as
an ingredient in animal feed. From 1998 to 2002, the United States also
exported to Mexico substantial quantities of white corn, which is used to make
tortillas, but these exports have since diminished, possibly due to Mexican
Government support for domestically produced white corn. The number of
agricultural producers in Mexico declined substantially during the 1990s, but
the Mexican corn sector still features a large number of small-scale producers,
whose efforts are also supplemented by government payments. Broader access
to U.S. yellow corn is fostering the expansion of hog and poultry production in
Mexico, while Mexico’s large flour companies are increasing their role in
tortilla production, not only in Mexico but also in the United States.
Keywords: International trade, corn, Mexico, North American Free Trade
Agreement, NAFTA.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Allen Baker, Mary E. Burfisher, Praveen Dixit, Joy
Harwood, Linwood Hoffman, and Janet Perry of USDA’s Economic Research
Service (USDA, ERS); Benjamin Juarez, Erich Kuss, and Sigal Nissan of
USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service (USDA, FAS); René Ochoa of Texas
A&M University’s Agricultural and Food Policy Center; William I. Tierney,
Jr., of USDA’s World Agricultural Outlook Board; and Antonio Yúnez-Naude
of El Colegio de México’s Program of Studies of Economic Change and
Sustainability in Mexican Agriculture for their helpful comments and sugges-
tions. Lisa Andersen, William Brant, and Brenda Freeman of USDA, FAS, and
Joy Harwood and Janet Perry of USDA, ERS, facilitated the review process.
We also thank Linda Foreman, Jim Johnson, and William McBride of USDA,
ERS, for providing data from the 2001 Agricultural Resource Management
Survey, and John Weber and Juanita Tibbs of USDA, ERS, for editorial and

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http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/02/13/385754265/how-nafta-changed-american-and-mexican-food-forever

Now for a general overview of the effects of NAFTA Effects

I find many businesses and services are using the high USD and energy price increase as an excuse to gouge their customers. Unless you are a direct heavy user of fuel (like a trucker or excavator service) or a heavy user of propane/electricity (like a production plant) your actual costs shouldn't increase hardly at all. Tell me how a restaurant or plumber is affected to the tune of 10% to 20% by a 20% fuel price increase. Fuel only accounts for maybe 5% of their overheads and they certainly don't use that much stuff imported from the US.

Sometimes things get distorted. Corn is cheaper than bottled water.

Price of Corn
3.59 cents USD per bushel

Updated: Jan-17-17 10:42 AM EST


A bushel is a unit of measure for volumes of dry commodities such as shelled corn kernels. 1 Bushel of corn is equal to 8 gallons.

Juices and soft drinks like Coca-Cola and Pepsi contain corn sweeteners. A bushel of corn can sweeten 400 cans of soft drink.

http://www.quotecorn.com/

Gas pries will be up 30% if you compare Nov 2016 to Feb 2017