
The U.S. Is Dumping More Than Tariffs on Mexico
January 27, 2025 | Source: Truth Dig | by Timothy A. Wise and Stewart A.L. James
President Donald Trump arrives in office threatening to slap 25% tariffs on all imports from Mexico. If he carries through, it will amount to more than just a blatant violation of the free trade agreement he renegotiated with Mexico and Canada in 2018, butl also complete a neoliberal hat trick of unfair trade policies by Washington. In December, the U.S. won its challenge to Mexico’s right to restrict the importation of genetically modified corn for its tortillas. Meanwhile, the U.S. has resumed exporting that corn at punishingly low prices.
That last item is arguably the most devastating for Mexico, where, as the campesino slogan says, sin maíz no hay país (“without corn there is no country”). Corn remains at the center of the country’s diet and rural life, with some two-thirds of farmers growing a rich array of corn varieties adapted over millennia to the country’s diverse cultures and landscapes. According to recent data, the U.S. is currently exporting corn to Mexico at prices 14% lower than what it costs to produce and transport it. That is an unfair trade practice known as “agricultural dumping,” and it severely undermines local farmers’ ability to earn a living from their corn.
Unlike Trump’s threatened tariffs, dumping corn on Mexico is entirely legal under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. The new wave of dumping resumes a devastating trend that began with the 1994 enactment of the USMCA’s predecessor, the North American Free Trade Agreement. The treaty outlawed tariff protections for Mexican farmers, prompting a flood of corn and other agricultural exports from the U.S. In most years, those crops were dumped on Mexico at very low prices. The pandemic-era uptick in commodity prices raised hopes in rural Mexican communities battered by “free trade” and hollowed out by migration. Former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador counted on higher prices to jump-start a rural economy that had languished amid unfair competition and government neglect.