CAMBRIDGE, MA., Aug 19 (IPS) – Closing arguments are in within the U.S. commerce grievance in opposition to 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 steadiness.
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 affect 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 the usage of GM corn in tortillas and phased out the usage of the herbicide glyphosate, which is utilized to 80% of U.S. corn. Mexico cited evidence of both GM corn and glyphosate in tortillas and different frequent corn preparations and documented the dangers from such exposures, significantly for a Mexican inhabitants that eats greater than ten occasions the quantity of corn consumed per capita in the USA.
The place is the commerce restriction?
The U.S. declare has been specious from the beginning. In its complaint it mischaracterized Mexico’s presidential decree as a “Tortilla Corn Ban” and a “Substitution Instruction” to part 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 the usage of GM corn in tortillas and in different meals made out of minimally processed (floor) white corn. It’s a ban on use, not imports. White corn exports, together with GM white corn, nonetheless stream 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.
Trade lawyer Ernesto Hernández López took on the U.S. deception, mentioning 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 turn out to be obtainable. The unique decree makes use of the time period “gradual substitution” (sustitución paulatina) and makes clear that it’s based mostly on provides being obtainable.
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 knowledge displaying that U.S. feed-corn exports to Mexico have gone up significantly because the 2023 decree, a results of weak harvests because of drought.
Think about the information
The USMCA tribunal ought to think about the information:
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. Center for Food Safety. Which means that, as a Reuters headline put it in March, “Mexico waiting on US proof that GM corn safe for its people.”
After lots of of pages of filings and two days of hearings, Mexico continues to be ready for that proof. Hopefully the tribunal will weigh the information, dismiss the U.S. declare, and never enable the U.S. to misuse a commerce settlement to cease a coverage it would not like.
Timothy A. Sensible is a Senior Analysis Fellow at Tufts College’s World Growth and Atmosphere Institute and the creator of Consuming Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Household Farmers and the Battle for the Way forward for Meals.
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© Inter Press Service (2024) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service
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