Mexico City, Apr 9 (EFE).- The leftist now leading the polls for this year’s Mexican presidential contest said here Monday that he agrees with US President Donald Trump on the need for workers in Mexico to get higher pay.
“We are in favor of continuing the trade relationship with the United States and Canada, we want there to be a revision of the accord (the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement), not for it to be canceled,” Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told a meeting of the American Chamber, an association of US firms operating in Mexico.
An improved NAFTA would lead to better pay and working conditions for Mexicans, the former Mexico City mayor said, while also demanding greater transparency from Mexico’s current government about the negotiations in progress with Washington and Ottawa.
“It is not fair, it is not possible, that (a Mexican factory worker) earns 10 times less than what a worker on the other side of the border earns,” Lopez Obrador said. “I have information that President Donald Trump is urging the improvement of pay for Mexican workers, and on that, we agree.”
But the presidential hopeful categorically rejected Trump’s hostile rhetoric toward Mexico on the issue of immigration.
“Mutual respect” is necessary between nations, Lopez Obrador said, adding that the immigration problem would not be solved “with walls, or by militarizing the border.”