On Monday, April 20, a key meeting began between representatives from Mexico and the United States to review the USMCA. Donald Trump’s capriciousness and the volatile international situation have cast a shadow of uncertainty over the treaty’s future:
Will the USMCA be revised, or will it simply be scrapped? If it is scrapped, will there be separate bilateral agreements among the three countries? Nothing is certain at the time of writing. In the face of uncertainty, some argue: “Don’t change the agreement—let it stay as it is,” pointing out that if too many demands are made, Trump will use that as an excuse to withdraw from the USMCA, which would harm major exporters of tomatoes, avocados, berries, tropical fruits, live cattle, beer, tequila, and mezcal to the United States. This is also the stance of the Agricultural Coalition for the USMCA Agreement, formed by 40 agricultural and livestock groups in that country, the American Federation of Agricultural Boards, the National Council of Agricultural Cooperatives, the National Corn Growers Association, the American Soybean Association, and the National Milk Producers Union, as well as some 100 Republican and Democratic lawmakers from states that export grains, oilseeds, milk, and meat to Mexico: the major players in the rural sector on both sides of the border.
But there are many other voices from the Mexican countryside and academia who see things very differently and analyze the costs that this trade agreement has imposed on the nation’s (Mexico’s) agriculture. They point out that from NAFTA to the USMCA, Mexico has lost its food sovereignty in strategic products, such as staple grains and oilseeds. The profitability of corn, bean, and wheat farmers—to name just three examples—has collapsed due to unfair competition from subsidized grains from the United States, high input costs, and insufficient guaranteed prices.
Thus, since the NAFTA negotiations, producer organizations—and, since last fall, the National Front for the Rescue of the Mexican Countryside (FNRCM)—have demanded that staple grains be excluded from the agreement. It does not seem at all easy to do so now, but if one listens closely to what these organizations are asking for, it is that, with or without the treaty, the federal government develops and implements a robust policy to promote crop production for food sovereignty. This implies not only promoting self-sufficiency among the poorest producers, but also establishing the conditions for small and medium-sized commercial farmers to improve their productivity, gain access to credit, insurance, price protection, affordable inputs, and incentives for productive organization and marketing, while the state intervenes to regulate agricultural markets. This would be the demand—not a short-term, but a structural one—of various organizations that have recently mobilized.
That said, there are other social demands that could easily be included in the current revision of the USMCA, provided there is open dialogue with those proposing them: ensuring the protection of territories and common property, such as water and forests, as well as ensuring that the treaty protects our countryside from the import and use of agrochemicals.
To ensure the protection of native seeds and biodiversity and prevent the entry of genetically modified seeds, we demand that our country not yield to pressure to accede to UPOV (International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants) Act 91, as this would favor seed patents, limit their use and exchange by producers, and facilitate the control of the seed market by oligopolies.
Another recurring demand is full compliance with the labor rights and social benefits of agricultural day laborers and their families. The USMCA must not permit the production and sale of agricultural goods produced through labor exploitation, the use of polluting agrochemicals, and the destruction of nature.
The challenge is no small one: building food sovereignty in a globalized agricultural environment, with the population’s dietary habits vastly different from those of the import substitution era. Furthermore, our agriculture is far more heterogeneous than that of our northern neighbors and operates under conditions far less favorable for grain production. Even so, it is an urgent task to develop a roadmap for building our sovereign agri-food model with broad participation, above all, from producers. Our agriculture is not merely a productive activity; it is social cohesion, identity, and meaning—it is a formidable public good. The USMCA must be an instrument to promote it, not to subordinate it to oligopolistic interests and distort it. Those reviewing the treaty must understand this.
Original text by Victor Quinana S. published in La Jornada on April 22nd, 2026.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.