By Derrick Broze
The Biden administration and Tom “Mr. Monsanto” Vilsack have emerged victorious in their effort to use the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) to force Mexico to accept U.S. grown genetically engineered corn.
On Friday, an international trade panel ruled in favor of the United States in their ongoing dispute with Mexico over an attempted ban on imports of American genetically modified (GM) corn.
The Mexican Department for the Economy said it disagreed with the ruling but would follow it. The Mexican government has been attempting to limit the introduction of GM corn to their country because they believe it poses an unreasonable risk to the domestic corn supply, and thus the health of the country’s numerous indigenous communities and farmers who depend on corn.
“The Mexican government does not agree with the panel’s finding, given that it considers that the measures in question are aligned with the principles of protecting public health and the rights of Indigenous communities,” Mexico’s Economy Department told the Associated Press. “Nonetheless, the Mexican government will respect the ruling.”
The U.S. government celebrated the decision. Ambassador Katherine Tai said the ruling “underscores the importance of science-based trade policies”.
The decision was the latest in an ongoing legal battle between the Mexican and American governments over Mexico’s previous calls for banning imports of U.S. GM corn for human consumption. In 2020, former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) announced plans to ban GE corn for human consumption. This plan was later watered down, but the country did continue their fight against cross-pollination of their world-renowned corn seeds.
In February 2023, AMLO issued a decree announcing an immediate ban on the use of GM corn for dough and tortillas. The order also called on Mexican government agencies to phase out the use of GM corn for other food uses, including animal feed, which is where a majority of Mexico’s current imports of US GM corn ends up.
Mexico is currently the leading importer of GM corn from the US. This fact alone makes Mexico’s efforts to ban or reduce the presence of GM corn a huge potential financial loss for the American industry growing and exporting GM crops.
For the Mexican farmers who have been cultivating corn for an estimated 8,000 years, GM corn represents a significant threat. GM corn can spread via the birds, bees, and wind, resulting in cross-pollination between traditional crops and GM versions.
In response to Mexico’s initiatives, the US established the dispute panel in August 2023, accusing Mexico of violating the terms of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement launched under the first Trump administration. The US brought six legal claims against Mexico, including charges that Mexico’s process for determining that GM corn poses a risk was insufficient and not scientifically sound.
The USMCA dispute panel found in favor of the US on all legal claims, stating that, “Mexico’s measures are not based on science and undermine the market access that Mexico agreed to provide in the USMCA.”
Under the USMCA, Mexico has 45 days to comply with the Panel’s findings.
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum Responds to the Ruling
One day after the trade panel ruling, Mexico’s recently elected President Claudia Sheinbaum stated that the incoming Mexican Congress will pass a ban on the planting of GM corn.
“We must protect Mexico’s biodiversity in our country. As we say: without corn, there is no country,” Sheinbaum stated.
On the 23rd, Sheinbaum was again asked about the decision by the panel and how Mexico would respond.
“Transgenic corn cannot be sown here in Mexico. There are already decrees, but now we want to take it to the Constitution,” Sheinbaum stated. “And let it be very clear that in Mexico it is forbidden to sow transgenic corn.”
Sheinbaum noted that while she was Secretary of the Environment in Mexico City there was a decree that GM corn cannot be sown in the city. She noted that the Mexico City government made efforts to save native-corn in genetic banks.
Sheinbaum also noted that because of the nature of the corn it makes the farmers less dependent on biotech corporations.
“A part of the corn is saved, that seed is saved and is resown and used in the next harvest. This is very important because it does not depend on the farmer to buy the seed from a transnational company,” she stated. “So, preserving the corn in Mexico, not transgenic, is something mandatory.”
The Mexican Government’s Arguments for Banning GM Corn
The USMCA panel’s main conclusions repeatedly attack Mexico’s ability to decide which products constitute a threat to its peoples and culture. The panel refused to accept Mexico’s national sovereignty and introduction of a “zero risk” policy as legitimate reasons for apparently violating the terms of the USMCA.
Mexico’s agencies found that consumption of GM corn in Mexico could impact human health, and GM corn poses a risk to native corn of “transgenic contamination”. The nation implemented the zero risk policy precisely because “the presence of contaminants and toxins in GM corn grain, such as transgenic proteins and glyphosate, has been well documented.”
“In addition, the adverse health effects of these contaminants and toxins have been scientifically demonstrated,” the Mexican government has previously stated. The government said that it “cannot be coerced into ignoring the independent scientific evidence that indicates the harmful effects of transgenic proteins and pesticide residues in GM corn”.
America’s southern neighbor said current international standards, recommendations, and guidelines are based on industrial agriculture in the U.S. and Canada, and do not address the risks of transgenic contamination and uncontrolled spread of GM to Mexico’s native corn.
Mexico said there was concern about GM corn and Mexico’s native non-GM corn varieties growing together in the same small fields and milpas, a traditional crop growing system which is intrinsic to indigenous ways of life in Mexico.
The Mexican government argued that it was acting in defense of their vast indigenous population for which corn is a part of diet, culture, and spiritual practices. Numerous national and international treaties, as well as national and state laws, were cited by the Mexican government in an effort to show that defending indigenous people is a tightly held legal commitment.
The US government responded by stating that Mexico’s claims of legal obligations to indigenous peoples were actually “vague, highly generalized concepts” such as “protecting the cultural heritage of Indigenous peoples and communities.” The US argued that these “vague concepts” do not constitute a concrete legal obligation.
Biden and Mr. Monsanto Win… For Now
The most strongly worded statement from the Mexican government came in response to the well-known revolving door relationship between U.S. government agencies and the industries they are supposed to regulate. In this case, the incestuous relationships between U.S. regulators and those who work for pesticide companies and producers of GM seeds.
In their rejection of the U.S. governments demands about GM corn, the Mexican government said they would not place the “economic interests of U.S. biotech corporations ahead of people’s health in Mexico”.
Indeed, the decision was praised by members of the biotech industry. John Crowley, CEO of the biotech industry trade group BIO, celebrated the ruling as a “monumental victory for the future innovation of agricultural production technologies.”
The perfect example of this relationship between regulators and lobbyists for the biotech industry is the current US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, former Governor of Iowa and former president and CEO of the US Dairy Export Council. Secretary Vilsack was appointed by the Biden administration after previously serving as Secretary of Agriculture during the Obama administration.
Vilsack cheered the decision by the dispute panel, calling it a “thorough and impartial assessment” which concluded that “Mexico’s approach to biotechnology was not based on scientific principles or international standards”. Vilsack said the ruling was a victory for “countries around the world growing and using products of agricultural biotechnology to feed their growing populations and adapt to a changing planet.”
Vilsack is notable for being given the nickname “Mr. Monsanto” in reference to his work helping the biotech giant Monsanto Inc, now owned by Bayer. In 2001 the Biotechnology Innovation Organization named Vilsack “BIO Governor of the Year” for “his support of the industry’s economic growth and agricultural biotechnology research” while serving as Iowa’s Governor.
In 2016, Politico reported on Vilsack’s role in accelerating the approval of GM crops during the Obama administration:
“Progressives say they are also disappointed that during Vilsack’s seven-and-a-half-year tenure, the Agriculture Department sped up approval of controversial GMO crops, backed trade deals they say cost Americans’ jobs and cleared changes to let poultry slaughter facilities police themselves, among a slew of initiatives favoring big producers.”
The Organic Consumer Association also reported on the various GM food products approved during Vilsack’s tenure. According to the OCA, while Vilsack was USDA Secretary from 2009 to 2017 he approved more new GM crops than any Secretary before him or since. Here are just a couple examples:
- Monsanto’s Roundup Ready sugar beets: A judge ruled that inevitable contamination would cause the “potential elimination of farmer’s choice to grow non-genetically engineered crops, or a consumer’s choice to eat non-genetically engineered food.”
- Monsanto’s Roundup Ready alfalfa: The first genetically modified perennial crop. By the end of the Obama administration, it had gone wild, costing American alfalfa growers and exporters millions of dollars in lost revenue. Vilsack’s long-term relationships with the biotech industry should be a warning sign for the Mexican government, and a clear sign of where his allegiances remain.
Vilsack’s habit of moving between government and industry continued during his absence from government under Donald Trump. Forbes recently reported:
“In February 2017, Vilsack joined an organization that the agriculture department helps fund, called the U.S. Dairy Export Council. As its chief executive and president, Vilsack promoted dairy products overseas. He also communicated with the Department of Agriculture, reaching out to his successor, Sonny Perdue. The work paid well, as revolving-door positions often do. During the four years Vilsack led the organization, he earned an estimated $3.6 million.”
One clear example is the Conservation Reserve Program which pays farmers to refrain from planting and harvesting on sensitive land. In the first months back in the White House under Biden, Vilsack announced an expansion of the program and raised the rates it pays to farmers. Vilsack has reportedly collected thousands of dollars of subsidies from his farm as part of the program.
The Mexican Government Continues to Oppose GM Crops
Despite the US government’s repeated claims that Mexico’s policies on GM crops are not based in science, the Mexican government has offered numerous studies and reports outlining their view.
For example, in March 2023, Mexico’s National Council for Science and Technology (CONACYT) hosted an online webinar laying out the science behind the nation’s decision to ban imports of GM corn. The webinar itself was a response to repeated claims by the U.S. government that Mexico positions to GM corn are not based on science.
CONACYT, the Mexican government’s senior science department, organized several presentations from Mexican scientists detailing the health concerns surrounding GM food and the herbicide glyphosate which is typically sprayed on GM corn produced by Bayer, formerly Monsanto.
During his presentation, Alejandro Espinoza Calderón, director of Mexico’s biosecurity agency Intersecretarial Commission for Biosafety and Genetically Modified Organisms (Cibiogem), noted that,
“Mexico has a rich store of exceptionally healthy varieties of corn. It is alarming to find that 90 percent of tortillas were shown to have traces of both glyphosate and transgenics. The biosecurity of Mexico is of utmost importance.”
National University biologist Ana Laura Wegier Briuolo, a biologist at Mexico’s National University made it clear that “without healthy corn we cannot have healthy people.”
During the webinar Dr. Omar Arellano, from the National University’s Ecology and Natural Resources Department, shared data from Mexico, Argentina, and the United States, detailing how glyphosate impacts human health. “The science is much clearer now than it was twenty years ago,” Arellano stated.
Source: The Last American Vagabond
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Derrick Broze, a staff writer for The Last American Vagabond, journalist, author, documentary film maker, public speaker, and activist. He is the founder of The Conscious Resistance Network, an independent media outlet dedicated to investigative journalism, and the intersection of liberty and spirituality. Derrick is the author of the underground best-seller How to Opt-Out of the Technocratic State. He is also the writer, director, and narrator of the 17-part documentary series, The Pyramid of Power.
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