WINNIPEG: Canadian spring wheat sales by Viterra Inc and others may expand in Mexico at the expense of US wheat, as US President Donald Trump threatens to upend long-standing free trade with its southern neighbor, the company's North America chief said on Thursday.
Mexico's agriculture minister said last month that it would look to Argentina and Brazil to buy yellow corn, part of a drive to lessen Mexico's dependence on US exports.
Mexican wheat buying could likewise see a shift, Kyle Jeworski, chief executive of Viterra's North America region, said. The agriculture unit of commodity trader and miner Glencore PLC is one of Canada's biggest wheat exporters and a small handler of US wheat.
"There may be opportunities available to us on the wheat front," he said in an interview in Winnipeg. "Depending on political climate, can Canada be more competitive? Potentially."
New Mexican opportunities are speculative, Jeworski said. But if relations sour between the two countries to the point where Mexico imposes a trade barrier that increases the cost of US products in Mexico, "that would suddenly change the economics of other origins, including Canada," Jeworski said.
Trade among the three countries is governed by the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Trump has promised to change, especially concerning Mexico, or tear up.
Mexico will import 4.9 million tonnes of wheat in the current 2016/17 marketing year, making it the 12th largest importer, according to the US Department of Agriculture. The United States and Canada are forecast to be the second- and fifth-largest wheat exporters, respectively, the department said.
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