I had just returned from an exhilarating, intellectually stimulating week in Mexico City when the news broke that the United States government had escalated its challenge to Mexico’s restrictions on genetically modified (GM) corn to the level of a formal dispute under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement (USMCA).
“The United States has repeatedly conveyed its concerns that Mexico’s biotechnology policies are not based on science and threaten to disrupt U.S. exports to Mexico,” U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said in a statement announcing the June 2 action.
Not based on science? I had just participated in an unprecedented series of public events organized by Mexico’s national science agencies to explore and present that science. For five weeks, Mexican and international biologists, geneticists, pediatricians, agronomists, ecologists, medical doctors, veterinarians, soil scientists, oncologists and toxicologists presented research documenting the “risks and dangers” associated with GM corn and glyphosate-based herbicides, such as Monsanto’s Roundup. Economists, lawyers and social scientists added their own expertise.