CAMBRIDGE, MA., Aug 19 (IPS) – Closing arguments are in within the U.S. commerce criticism towards Mexico’s restrictions on genetically modified (GM) corn, with the three-arbitrator tribunal set to rule on the matter in November. The legitimacy of the commerce settlement itself hangs within the stability.
In the middle of the year-long course of Mexico has dismantled U.S. claims, displaying that its precautionary measures are permitted beneath the phrases of the commerce settlement, that its restrictions barely influence U.S. exports, and that it has a mountain of scientific proof of danger to justify its precautionary insurance policies.
Will the panel let the U.S. use a commerce settlement cease a coverage that hardly impacts commerce?
The U.S. authorities requested this formal dispute-resolution course of a 12 months in the past beneath the U.S.-Mexico-Canada commerce settlement (USMCA) over Mexico’s February 2023 presidential decree that restricted using GM corn in tortillas and phased out using the herbicide glyphosate, which is utilized to 80% of U.S. corn. Mexico cited proof of each GM corn and glyphosate in tortillas and different widespread corn preparations and documented the dangers from such exposures, notably for a Mexican inhabitants that eats greater than ten instances the quantity of corn consumed per capita in america.
The place is the commerce restriction?
The U.S. declare has been specious from the beginning. In its criticism it mischaracterized Mexico’s presidential decree as a “Tortilla Corn Ban” and a “Substitution Instruction” to section out imports of GM yellow corn for animal feed. Mexico, in its written filings within the case, has repeatedly objected to those phrases.
By calling it a “tortilla corn ban” the U.S. is implying that Mexico has banned U.S. exports of white corn, the sort generally utilized in tortillas. They have not. They solely banned using GM corn in tortillas and in different meals constituted of minimally processed (floor) white corn. It’s a ban on use, not imports. White corn exports, together with GM white corn, nonetheless movement from the U.S. to Mexico. They simply cannot be used within the tortilla/corn-flour meals chain.
As a result of the overwhelming majority of U.S. corn exports are yellow varieties for animal feed and industrial makes use of, the restriction barely impacts U.S. corn producers. The place is the commerce restriction?
A lot of the U.S. case rests on its deceptive characterization of the “Substitution Instruction” as a commerce restriction. It’s no such factor.
The U.S. argues that the 2023 decree mandates the eventual phase-out of all GM corn imports, threatening the $5 billion-per-year Mexican marketplace for U.S. yellow corn – 97% of U.S. exports – overwhelmingly GM varieties primarily used as animal feed. Although Mexico has no present restrictions on such U.S. exports, and none are deliberate, the U.S. argues that Mexico’s mandate threatens future income it anticipated to obtain from the commerce settlement.
Commerce lawyer Ernesto Hernández López took on the U.S. deception, stating that there isn’t any mandate (instruction) to cease utilizing GM corn, simply to develop extra different non-GM feed sources and use them as they develop into accessible. The unique decree makes use of the time period “gradual substitution” (sustitución paulatina) and makes clear that it’s based mostly on provides being accessible.
As Hernández López factors out, the commerce panel shouldn’t settle for a U.S. argument based mostly overwhelmingly on hypothetical future reductions in Mexican imports of GM feed corn. The U.S. case is made all of the weaker by information displaying that U.S. feed-corn exports to Mexico have gone up considerably because the 2023 decree, a results of weak harvests on account of drought.
Contemplate the info
The USMCA tribunal ought to think about the info:
The Mexican authorities has additionally highlighted how lax and riddled with conflicts of curiosity the U.S. regulatory course of is for GM corn, a cost backed by the U.S. Middle for Meals Security. Which means that, as a Reuters headline put it in March, “Mexico ready on US proof that GM corn protected for its folks.”
After tons of of pages of filings and two days of hearings, Mexico remains to be ready for that proof. Hopefully the tribunal will weigh the info, dismiss the U.S. declare, and never permit the U.S. to misuse a commerce settlement to cease a coverage it would not like.
Timothy A. Smart is a Senior Analysis Fellow at Tufts College’s World Improvement and Setting Institute and the writer of Consuming Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Household Farmers and the Battle for the Way forward for Meals.
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