https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/corporate-profits-mexico-gmo-corn-cd/
Growing corn is a part of Mexico’s culture. Domesticated 8,700 years ago it is sacred and a staple of the everyday diet. Mexicans didn’t want our GM corn, but in an economy pushed toward depression by NAFTA, people were forced to rely on what was available and affordable.
And NAFTA wasn’t the end of it.
Today under a new (free but not fair) trade agreement — U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement or USMCA — the U.S. aims to force Mexico to not only accept GM corn but also to overturn their ban on the herbicide Roundup (glyphosate), a probable carcinogen.
Mexico wants neither, they want to grow their own non-GM corn and import only non-GM corn to meet domestic demand.
Glyphosate also threatens biodiversity, not just of their native corn, but of pollinators — the bees, butterflies and birds that winter in Mexico — so why would they want either?
Yet under USMAC, the Biden administration, through the U.S. Trade Representative, said they would take all steps to enforce U.S. rights.
The rights of the U.S. and the rights of Mexico will, in all likelihood, come down to the trade tribunals and the bullying of the U.S. government and its unending support of U.S. corporations and agricultural trade groups.
The National Corn Growers Association (NCGA), noted that allowing the ban to move forward (or in simple language, allowing Mexico to protect their farmers, their environment, and their culture) would be catastrophic to America’s corn producers — but their real concern lies not with a potential drop in U.S. farm income, but rather a reduction of corporate profit.
America’s corn producers can grow the non-GM corn Mexico would like to buy and they would be paid a premium to do so. But the power of the seed and pesticide corporations, the multi-national grain companies, and industry trade groups like NCGA make growing and marketing non-GM corn more difficult.