Mexico’s incoming president will end the government’s plan to ban imports of genetically modified (GM) yellow corn from the U.S., according to Reuters.
Julio Berdegue, named to be Mexico’s President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum’s agriculture minister, said the government will instead focus on maintaining self-sufficiency in white corn, which is used throughout the country in foods like tortillas.
“Our objective is not to reduce imports, our objective is to produce more,” Berdegue said. “Our goal is not self-sufficiency in yellow corn … not in this six-year term.”
Mexico will likely have to continue importing large amounts of yellow corn due to increased demand from the country’s livestock sector, Berdegue said.
Sheinbaum won Mexico’s presidential election on June 5 and will take office Oct. 1.
Mexico was the No. 1 export market for corn from the U.S. in 2023, importing $5.39 billion worth of the grain, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Japan ranked No. 2 for imports of U.S. corn at $2.07 billion, and China ranked third with $1.63 billion.
Related: US calls for dispute panel in spat with Mexico over corn trade
Most U.S. corn is produced in states such as Iowa, Nebraska and Illinois and shipped by rail, truck and barge, according to the USDA. The bulk of U.S. corn exports to Mexico are shipped either from the Port of New Orleans via container ship or by truck from the port of entry in Laredo, Texas.
Lopez Obrador’s plan to prohibit the importation of the GM corn began in 2020, when outgoing Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador decreed he would eliminate the use of the herbicide glyphosate and GM corn in the country.
Lopez Obrador was also pushing for Mexico to achieve self-sufficiency in production of the white corn. In June 2023, Mexico began imposing a 50% tariff on white corn exports entering the country from the U.S.
Farmers and policymakers in the U.S. have been urging the Mexican government to reconsider the ban on imports of GM corn.
In August 2023, the U.S. began a dispute settlement panel under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) over Mexico’s plan to ban GM corn.
Lopez Obrador and his administration aimed to ban GM yellow corn to eliminate glyphosate, which they view as harmful to people, from Mexico’s food supply chain.
“I think it will be very important because it is not just a matter of Mexico, it is a matter that will help consumers in the U.S. and around the world,” Obrador said during an August 2023 news conference in Mexico City. “It’s good that the [U.S.] is now challenging our decree so that we don’t use that corn for human consumption, because this will allow us in this panel to present evidence and make proposals.”
In June, a three-person trade panel convened in Mexico City to hear arguments from both Mexican and U.S. legal teams, according to FarmWeekNow. The panel is scheduled to release its preliminary and final reports this fall determining whether Mexico violated USMCA trade provisions in its plans to restrict imports of GM corn.