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Trade Dispute Ruling Undermines Mexico's Food Sovereignty, and Authority to Protect Health, Environment from GMO Corn

December 23, 2024

WASHINGTON - A final ruling in the trade dispute between the U.S. and Mexico over genetically engineered (GMO) corn finds that Mexico failed to adhere to some steps required by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Agreement (USMCA). In particular, the tribunal called upon Mexico to carry out an "appropriate" risk assessment quantifying the human health risks arising from consumption of tortillas and other corn based products contaminated with GMO-corn insecticide and herbicide residues. A tribunal established under the USMCA issued its final ruling in the dispute on December 20, 2024. Mexico and the U.S. have 45 days to respond.

The tribunal process, and its eventual outcomes, will help frame debates related to food and agricultural trade issues in the forthcoming 2026 revisions to the USMCA.In 2023 Mexico issued a presidential decree prohibiting the incorporation of GMO white corn in tortillas and masa, and phasing out the use of glyphosate-based herbicides. Since the commercialization of GMO crops in 1996, Mexico's 2023 decree stands out globally as one of the most consequential actions taken in the pursuit of food sovereignty.

The U.S. alleged that these actions violated the terms of the USMCAtrade agreement. In submissions to the tribunal, the U.S. government downplayed the health risks of GMO corn. Both FOE-US and the Mexican government presented undisputed datademonstrating the potential health risks of glyphosate residues and genetically engineered insecticidal compounds in GMO corn.

"Trade agreements should not allow governments and multinational pesticide and biotech companies to imperil the health of people and the environment," said Kendra Klein, PhD, deputy director of science at Friends of the Earth U.S. "Mexico is fully within its right to stand up for the health of its people and uphold sound science."

The tribunal's report and recommendations leave intact several actions in the 2023 Presidential decree and Mexican law impacting the use and regulation of GMO foods, including:

• Mexico's law on the right to healthy food mandates the labeling of food products containing GMO ingredients.
• No GMO corn can be legally planted in Mexico, curtailing the spread of GMO genes into native Mexican corn varieties.
• Mexico will put in place a traceability system to track all GMO corn imported into Mexico.
• The use of glyphosate (aka Roundup), the world's most heavily used pesticide, will continue to be phased out, an action not contested by the U.S.

Well documented risks of exposure to GMO corn and glyphosate herbicides include damage to the human GI tract, alteration of kidney function, immune system problems such as new food allergies, and acceleration of already worrisome trends in the frequency of overweight, obesity, and diabetes in Mexico. The FOE-US comments also noted that exposure levels for the Mexican population would be far higher than in the U.S. because corn-based foods make up about 60% of daily caloric intake in Mexico, a finding that the U.S. government did not contest.

In its dispute filings, the U.S. government made no real effort to rebut the Mexican government's and FOE-US's stinging critique of the shallow, out-of-date risk assessments done by U.S. government agencies in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Since the tribunal drafted its report, new research has been published in prominent science journals warning of a link between glyphosate exposures and kidney stones, Alzheimer's disease, and inflammation in the brain. Such new science will surely be considered as Mexico refines its risk assessment of GMO white corn.

Media contact: Shaye Skiff, Friends of the Earth U.S., [email protected]

Contacts:Dr. Charles Benbrook, [email protected], 208-290-8707

Kendra Klein, Friends of the Earth U.S., [email protected], 415-350-5957

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