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Mexico’s National Workers Union along with rural and social movements have rejected the signing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP, as they believe it is a trade agreement negotiated without consulting the workers and added that the peasant class will be affected.
"We say no because it was negotiated without consulting us, but also because it will bring serious consequences for Mexico, United States, Chile, Canada and Peru," said leaders at a rally held Friday in the emblematic Zocalo square in Mexico City.
Demonstrators say the signing of the TPP will only benefit transnational corporations.
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The rally follows the meeting held earlier this week by the TPP negotiation team of the county’s economy ministry, in which its head Roberto Zapata said that Mexico was ready to join the world's biggest free-trade area, bringing together 12 Pacific Rim countries including the United States, Singapore, Japan and Australia.
Work on the deal began in 2008 and the document will be signed in Auckland, New Zealand on February 4. Individual countries will then have two years to ratify the agreement.
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Winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics, Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, oppose the TPP because they argue it has the potential to harm people’s quality of life and it is an agreement that has been negotiated in secret.
Meanwhile TPP critics in Mexico have described it as “NAFTA on steroids,” referring to the 1994 free trade agreement signed with the U.S. and Canada, which was a disaster for local agriculture, negatively impacting food security and undermining Mexican farmers.
WATCH: TPP, NAFTA on Steroids
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