Mexico Smacks US Over GM Corn and Glyphosate

A Mexican standoff with the United States turned into a Mexican smack-down this month with the release of Mexico’s formal rebuttal to US efforts to overturn limits Mexico has ordered on the use of genetically modified (GM) corn and the weed killing chemical glyphosate.

In a 189-page report filed with a panel of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), Mexico laid out in stark terms why it has ordered that GM corn not be used for tortillas and dough that people eat and why it has ordered its farmers to stop using glyphosate.

“Mexico has legitimate concerns about the safety and innocuousness of genetically modified corn… and its indissoluble relationship with its technological package that includes glyphosate,” the government’s report states. Mexico cites the “use of dangerous pesticides” as a factor causing “serious health effects.”

There is “clear scientific evidence of the harmful effects of direct consumption of GM corn grain in corn flour, dough, tortilla and related products,” Mexico states. More evidence is needed, Mexico says, to determine “whether and to what extent, such risks are transmitted to food products further downstream…”