Mexico looks to stick it to New NAFTA

The article is from mid-December. I suspect there are other factors here, beyond what's noted therein. Namely, that like a lot of countries Mexico is fed up with U.S. "dumping" practices. And at least equally fed up with its agriculture being at the mercy of the ultra-exploitative greedheads of global Big Ag.

A high-level delegation from the Mexican government is in Washington today to discuss a series of bilateral trade issues, one of them being U.S. government and biotech industry claims that Mexico's intention to restrict imports of genetically modified corn in 2024 violates the new Agricultural Biotechnology provisions in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) that replaced NAFTA in 2020. Three years ago, the Mexican government announced its intention to phase out the use of the herbicide glyphosate and the importation of GM corn, citing both public health and environmental reasons.

U.S. and Mexican agribusiness interests responded with a demand that the U.S. government threaten Mexico with a USMCA trade dispute, arguing that the new USMCA provisions guarantee their rights to export GM corn to Mexico. Mexico is the largest export market for US corn, nearly all of which is genetically modified. The Mexican government has shown a willingness to negotiate the 2024 deadline, delaying the prohibition on GM feed corn imports, which constitute the vast majority of US exports to Mexico. Industry representatives continue to demand trade action from the U.S. government.

But does the Mexican action actually violate the Agricultural Biotechnology provisions of the USMCA? Senior trade attorney at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) Sharon Anglin Treat did a detailed textual analysis of the agreement earlier this year and concluded that Mexico is not obligated to accept GM corn exports from the United States if it has legitimate concerns about public health or the environment. - IATP

Something righteous happened re: trade and labor

It's been a long, long time coming, and hopefully there will be a lot more of it.

Last week, something revolutionary happened in the history of U.S. trade policy. The government used trade law to help labor, not to help capital.

Government switching sides gives a whole new political meaning to globalization. Global trade, with the right politics and policies, doesn’t have to produce a race to the bottom. It can even start a race to the top. Who knew?

The specific case involved an auto parts company called Tridonex, located in the border town of Matamoros, Mexico. Tridonex is owned by a Philadelphia outfit called Cardone Industries—which in turn is owned by a Canadian hedge fund! Tridonex makes things like reconditioned used brakes. It sends most of its products to the U.S., and is a classic case of offshoring jobs to Mexico, as enabled by NAFTA.

But in 2019, the Democrats in Congress and Trump trade chief Robert Lighthizer rewrote NAFTA. The successor agreement, called USMCA, includes tough, enforceable labor rights provisions, guaranteeing workers in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada the right to organize and join unions free from harassment. - The American Prospect

New NAFTA apparently limps to the finish line

To be clear, New NAFTA, aka the U.S., Mexico, Canada Trade Agreement, regarding which a deal was announced yesterday, does have some improvements over the existing one.  According to the text it does, anyway. Whether, for example, new environmental and labor protections will be enforced remains to be seen.

But in other ways it’s not really any better at all. The content of this blog often reflects my interest in farm issues, and that’s where I’m going, here:

But what exactly is the win for farmers in the new USMCA? Nearly all tariffs for agriculture were removed under the original NAFTA. The International Trade Commission, which analyzes trade deals for Congress, projected that the USMCA would result in a slight net deficit for agriculture trade: meaning we would import slightly more than export. The small projected increase in agriculture exports – mostly dairy to Canada – would have no substantive effect on the ongoing, dramatic loss of small and mid-sized dairies in the Midwest.

Grading trade deals solely on the value of goods crossing the border has always obscured the real winners and losers. The original NAFTA, combined with the formation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the 1996 Farm Bill, led to the ramping up of agricultural production and an increase in agriculture exports. It also led to an almost immediate drop in commodity crop prices and farmer income. In fact, since the original NAFTA we’ve seen the steady consolidation of agribusiness firms and of farmland ownership, the loss of hundreds of thousands of small and mid-sized farms and independent ranches, and the rapid growth of large-scale concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) fueled by cheap (often below cost) feed. We now have a largely integrated North American agriculture market, where young cattle from Mexico and feeder pigs from Canada routinely cross borders to be finished here. For agriculture, NAFTA’s real winners were not countries, but global agribusiness firms like Cargill, JBS, Tyson and Smithfield that operate in all three countries. - IATP

As far as the politics goes, this isn’t going to be huge for the 2020 election. Nothing else has changed the fact that half of American adults (that is, almost twice the percentage that actually voted for him, in 2016) - including 60% of women - want Trump gone, like, yesterday, whatever it takes, and this won’t, either. We just rightfully loathe and despise the guy, as the utterly repugnant, despicable failure as a human being that he is. But I’m adding this as a politics junkie thing.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said a deal that the AFL-CIO's endorsed "could be problematic," but vowed to reserve judgement until senators got a presentation on the agreement. "I just hope he hasn't gone too far in Speaker Pelosi's direction, and the AFL-CIO's direction that he might lose some support here," he said. "My concern is that what the administration presented has now been moved demonstrably to Democrats, the direction that they wanted." - The Hill

Crappy NAFTA 2.0 got signed, but it ain't over

Traitor Trump recently signed the US Mexico Canada Agreement (USMCA), frequently referred to as NAFTA 2.0. It still has to be approved, next year, by both houses of Congress. There is opposition from both the left and the right, and it will be interesting to follow. For now, useful analysis:

- This is an overview, with a lot of links:

The new NAFTA might hit some feel-good political notes. But, as always, the real-life impact of its protections for labor, the environment, and human rights comes down to the political will to wield the law to support those communities—a political will that is rooted in the rights that free-trade deals inevitably leave out: the people’s power to defy a rigged system. - The Nation

- This is more specific to farmers and food:

IATP has done a thorough analysis of what the new agreement means for farming and food. The upshot: While minor improvements have been made, major new detrimental provisions have also been added, and none of the structural issues that farmers in all three countries have been calling for have been adequately addressed. - IATP