USTR Has Begun SPS Consultations With Mexico on GMO Corn Ban
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative will be sharing information with Mexico about "the safety of biotech products," which is something the president of Mexico brought up repeatedly in explaining his decrees about genetically modified corn, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said at a Senate oversight hearing.
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Vilsack, who was speaking March 16, was explaining what technical consultations would focus on when U.S. staff speak with Mexican officials. Mexico had originally planned to ban the import of GMO corn in 2024, but the administration announced on Feb. 13 that it would be softening its ban and would allow corn for industrial processes or animal feed to be imported (see 2302150026). The U.S. then announced that it had begun technical consultations with Mexico over their ban of GMO corn through the USMCA sanitary and phytosanitary chapters (see 2303060043). This is a step before a formal dispute can begin.
Before the announcement, U.S. and Mexican officials had been discussing the trade barrier, and Vilsack said that they received a "partial set of answers" from Mexico about the ban, which they felt was "unsatisfactory," which is why the U.S. decided to launch a formal inquiry process. Vilsack said that U.S. officials will have to reassure Mexico that there are "hundreds of studies" on the safety of GMO corn. "This is fundamental to our whole approach to trade," he said, explaining that if the discussions are "not science-based, if you can inject culture, if you can inject non-scientific factors into trade discussions, you'll have a very difficult time [in] global trade."
Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has said maintaining heritage varieties of white corn used to make tortillas is a matter of preserving Mexican culture.
Even though the vast majority of U.S. corn exports are for animal feed, the USMCA says any restriction on agricultural imports under sanitary and phytosanitary standards must be based on science.