
In recent days, the Intergovernmental Panel’s decision regarding the dispute over the importation of transgenic corn from the United States into Mexico was issued.
This ruling -which determined that Mexico must accept the importation of corn from the United States, regardless of its nature- is nothing new. We knew it because it was clear that free trade agreements are instruments of power diversion that are used as a way to subdue Mexico in all decisions between the signatory countries.
Among the allegations alluded to by the panel is that Mexico did not present scientific evidence to support the ban on Mexico importing GM maize. According to Raymundo Espinoza, “the political message is very strong, because the Panel practically tells Mexico that it can plant whatever it likes at home (native or non-native non-GM corn), but that it cannot unilaterally restrict imports of GM corn or limit its final use. Moreover, although the ruling does not pretend to prove that GM maize or glyphosate are harmless, it does make good propaganda and advocacy for them.”
The worst part of the case is that Mexico presented on September 28 a dossier that Conhacyt prepared over several years, and which gathers enough scientific evidence to prove to the United States that it is not right. “The study in question is undoubtedly the most thorough and detailed systematization that has been generated and published by an official body such as Conhacyt. The profusion of studies, data and evidence, of technical and scientific aspects that are indispensable to understand the effects of GM corn on human health and the environment is surprising. Equally surprising is the number of references to all kinds of publications, pages, journals, which show the level of detail that is included and considered in the dossier.”
But the United States will disqualify as unscientific everything that does not suit it. It’s like Humpty Dumpty says to Alice in Through the Looking Glass, it doesn’t matter what is said, what matters is to know who’s in charge. And they are doing just that to bend Mexico and sanctify the free trade agreement, the T-MEC. “For the United States, the 2020 decree was enough to set off alarms and question Mexico banning, even gradually, the importation of GM corn and the use of glyphosate. Then in 2023, it was even worse. After all, the United States is the main source of Mexican corn imports (and 90% of U.S. corn production is GM),” according to GRAIN, in a document.
Luis Hernández said a few days ago: “For decades, U.S. farmers’ organizations and politicians have been claiming that U.S. farmers feed the world. The same is true of agribusiness consortiums. Monsanto, for example, warns that doing so is a moral imperative. And in an advertising brochure, the Cargill monopoly advertises itself as ‘We are the corn in your tortillas.’ For Washington, food is a powerful political weapon. Its international food aid programs, implemented over 67 years, allow it to support its allies in other nations, neutralize the influence of foreign enemies, open new markets, make deals with other trading partners and provide an outlet for the overproduction of its various agricultural products.”
The paradox is that while the U.S. was alarmed by the 2020 decree, in Mexico the Maize Defense Network described it as having a weak legal basis and very disadvantageous legal rationality in relation to the applicable laws to which it always refers, reaffirming its dependence on them.
This paradox became extreme in 2023, when Mexico issued a second decree that reduced its requirements almost to a minimum. The Mexican government has no shortage of scientific evidence to defend the case for corn. But in fact its public policy did not reflect that accumulated evidence, when confronted with the free trade agreement that forces it to obey. Mexico softened its position to the point that the new decree of 2023 does not actually prohibit imports of GM corn for industrial use. There are other reasons, then, why the U.S. government has brought Mexico into the legal dispute “ at full throttle” under the T-MEC rules.
Silvia Ribeiro says: “the main interest in bringing this case to the T-MEC panel, and the most relevant for the companies that control GMOs, was not the hypothetical loss of exports, but to set an example in other ways. The first is to prevent the advancement of laws that refer to GMOs and pesticides as having health and environmental risks. […] The second objective was to make it clear that Mexico cannot legislate in a precautionary manner on products that are key for transnationals, neither in its own country, nor to protect the health of its own population.”
Daliri Oropeza asks Ana de Ita in an interview what Mexico can do to protect its corn from the onslaught of the T-MEC: “In principle, as a country we would have to maintain the ban on planting. At least that ban exists, and it has protected corn all these years. If you allow planting […] it is only a matter of time before all native corn is contaminated. Additionally, we would have to not sign those treaties that are so harmful to national sovereignty, to be able to decide what you can and cannot eat. Since before the signing of NAFTA, the peasant organizations said, ‘don’t bring corn in,’ and the government said everything goes. And the government of López Obrador, with Trump, it was impossible for him to say, ‘oh, I’m going to take corn out’. No. It was all or nothing, now.”
Undoubtedly then, the real defense against transgenic corn will take place in the communities, as we have been saying in the Network in Defense of Corn (Red en Defensa del Maíz). The latter insists on rejecting the Free Trade Agreements as instruments of power shifting, a subjugation of national sovereignty to the interests of transnational corporations. FTAs are pressure mechanisms for the adoption of UPOV and its laws that prevent the exchange and free use of seeds.
They are such a pressure mechanism that the ruling seeks to concretize the submission of national and international law to transnational interests. Raymundo Espinoza says: “With its ruling, the Panel protects the interests of U.S. farmers, traders and biotech companies, as well as global agribusiness, but this is precisely because the provisions of the T-MEC on the matter seek to safeguard such interests. The U.S. territory is also taken over by the biotech industry, just as the U.S. authorities are co-opted by corporate interests, which is why the U.S. government will never agree to develop the non-GM maize market and extend it to Mexico, since its objective is rather to defend and expand a business model based on fraud and manipulation.”
They are such a pressure tactic that the ruling seeks to concretize the submission of national and international law to transnational interests. Raymundo Espinoza says: “With its ruling, the Panel protects the interests of U.S. farmers, traders and biotech companies, as well as global agribusiness, but this is precisely because the provisions of the T-MEC on the matter seek to safeguard such interests. The U.S. territory is also taken over by the biotech industry, just as the U.S. authorities are co-opted by corporate interests, which is why the U.S. government will never agree to develop the non-GM maize market and extend it to Mexico, since its objective is rather to defend and expand a business model based on fraud and manipulation.”
We are communities, organizations and individuals, including researchers, who defend corn.
But this defense demands respect for our self-determination and autonomy. Without this autonomy, any program to “promote and protect” maize will be just another attempt to turn what is ours alone into an official consultation or assistance program.
This text is a preview of a larger document in collaboration with Enlace Comunicación y Capacitación AC and Both Ends.
Original text by Ramón Vera Herrera published in the Ojarasca supplement of La Jornada January, 2025.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.