The United States Must Respect Indigenous Rights in Mexico GM Corn Case

There have been real shifts in United States trade policy over the last few years, with significant changes to rules on investment, digital trade, and worker rights. U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai rightfully takes pride in the most worker-centered trade policies in recent history. New tools in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) give workers in all three countries new ways to advance their labor rights. It’s time now to test another innovation in USMCA—rules that ensure governments can enact programs to protect Indigenous rights and biodiversity.

The U.S. trade challenge to Mexico’s rules to limit the use of genetically modified (GM) white corn in tortillas, flour, and other foods for human consumption presents such a test case. A central debate in this case is whether insecticidal and herbicide-resistant GM corn are safe, especially where, as in Mexico, white corn is such a significant part of the diet. The Mexican government has produced voluminous scientific evidence supporting their concerns over the negative impacts of GM corn using glyphosate on human and animal health and biodiversity, claims backed up by evidence submitted to the USMCA trade dispute panel by the Center for Food Safety, Friends of the Earth, the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network, and Poder del Consumidor, among others.