Energy and food sovereignty, uncertain route

The Mexican government is advancing along an uncertain path in the commercial relationship with its two main trading partners: the United States and Canada.

The year closes and very probably the beginning of the next one will continue, crossing a kind of dark tunnel, from which it is not known where it will take it.

The Mexican government registers a strong fire that could lead to a greater conflagration.

And when this risky fire has not yet begun to be extinguished –registered in the field of the energy sovereignty policy that the current administration is upholding– the alarms have already sounded for a probable new fire, which is about to be generated in the field of government food sovereignty lopezobradorista that prohibits from 2024 the import of genetically modified yellow corn, the use of the herbicide glyphosate and other fertilizers.

Last week the Secretary of the Economy, Raquel Buenrostro, met with the US trade representative, Katherine Tai.

They contrasted the statements from one side and the other.

For Mexico it was a fruitful meeting in which a solution to the US concerns was sought.

Before leaving, Buenrostro said that he had proposals in his portfolio to address two of the four concerns of the Americans.

However, from the content of the official communiqués after the meeting, it appeared that no progress had been made.

The US government insisted on the need to reach an urgent solution to the issue of energy in Mexico.

Additionally, the US government stressed the importance of avoiding any interruption in US corn exports to Mexico. He also demanded that Mexico base its resolution on scientific grounds regarding biotechnological agricultural products.

It was not the first time that an appeal of this size had been issued. The same official had already externalized it in a previous meeting. The Canadian Minister Mary Ng also did so in parallel.

Additionally, the US Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsak, met directly with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to directly raise his concerns regarding the ban on the importation of yellow corn and the use of glyphosate, as established by a presidential decree.

President López Obrador, in his morning conference, first responded that Mexico and the US could go to a dispute panel on this issue and then qualified by pointing out that the health authorities of both countries could jointly review whether or not genetically modified foods are harmful. .

The Secretaries of Foreign Relations and Agriculture, Marcelo Ebrard and Víctor Villalobos announced that a mission (with a delegation of sectoral authorities from those agencies plus Cofepris) will meet with their counterparts in the US, to analyze these issues.

There are two issues, whose common denominator is the alleged defense of the energy and food sovereignty of the Mexican government.

On the energy issue, despite the fact that the Mexican government seeks to solve it without reaching the contentious phase, the truth is that it seems unlikely that it will achieve it to the extent that it does not plan to change its energy policy. This, from the point of view of the US government, by giving protection to Pemex and the CFE affects the interests of companies in that country.

Sector experts consider that Mexico has no chance of winning in a dispute panel within the T-MEC.

On the other hand, regarding the ban on yellow corn, glyphosate and other fertilizers, Mexico also has no chance of winning because its decision contravenes what it signed in the T-MEC and because its arguments are not based on scientific evidence.

What does exist, says Juan Carlos Anaya, the influential consultant for Grupo Consultor de Mercados Agrícolas, is a study by 20 renowned researchers from the Biotechnology Committee of the Mexican Academy of Sciences in which they point out that transgenic foods are harmless to health. human; that have not been scientifically detected to cause harm to human health.

And on the other hand, if Mexico chose to import non-genetically modified yellow corn, it would increase the cost, it would go against the purpose of reducing inflation and it would cause a huge problem of shortages.

Let’s see.