Crisis in North America, Opportunities for Change

The 30-year project of integrating the three countries of North America through the corporate-driven NAFTA model is beginning to crumble under Donald Trump’s onslaught of xenophobia against Mexico and annexation threats against Canada.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation, which opens the door to conservatives regaining power in Canada, makes the North American political situation even more unstable.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s responses to Trump’s insults have been calm, measured, and even funny. But the real test will come after Trump assumes the presidency once again — this time as a convicted criminal.

It’s going to be a year of uncertainties. Of that, there is no doubt. But in this turmoil, we might also find opportunities to push for an alternative economic model for the region.

Business interests, of course, have already begun organizing to maintain the status quo of economic relations. That’s especially true for the exporters of manufactured goods from Mexico to the United States, the sector that would be most affected by Trump’s threatened tariffs.

But social movements are also organizing to propose a tri-national progressive agenda beyond extreme neoliberalism or self-centered protectionism. Union representatives from Canada, Mexico, and the US, for example, came together for the first tri-national auto workers summit in Mexico City this past November.

Debates at the convening centered on how to improve the labor provisions of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), the deal that came out of NAFTA renegotiations in 2018. The unions discussed ways to improve the treaty’s mechanisms for responding rapidly to labor rights violations, as well as opportunities for supporting collective bargaining and new member organizing. They also discussed threats to auto workers from unfair labor practices, as well as Chinese imports, emerging technologies, and electric vehicle production.

When it comes to agriculture, organizations in all three countries criticized a recent USMCA panel decision against Mexico’s ban on producing genetically modified white corn for human consumption. The panel sided with the US and Canada in finding that the policy violated the USMCA, ignoring substantial scientific tests showing risks to health and the climate from genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The panel also ignored threats to indigenous rights and baselessly anticipated economic harms to American corn exporters.

A separate statement from Canadian organizations concludes that the ruling against Mexico illustrates how free trade agreements can be used to undermine democratic decisions in favor of corporate interests.

Sheinbaum introduced the National Program of Food Sovereignty this past October, which will continue running into challenges under the USMCA. The trade agreement’s upcoming revision in 2026 should reinforce principles of public health and indigenous rights, as established in national legislation and international treaties that Mexico is party to.

But the USMCA disputes are not just between governments. Private corporations can also sue governments directly through supranational arbitration tribunals, such as the World Bank´s International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes.

This year, maybe soon, the controversial $500 million suit brought by the American mining company Legacy Vulcan LCC against Mexico will be decided. This is one of 20 active investor-state cases against Mexico. No doubt the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress will aggressively defend the mining company, which has committed an ecocide in the Playa del Carmen region.

Mexico should use the negotiations around the 2026 revision of the USMCA to free itself from this anti-democratic Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) system. In the 2018 negotiations, Canada and the US eliminated recourse to ISDS between those two countries.

But these excessive investor powers persist between Mexico and the United States, most notably for disputes related to government contracts connected to the oil and gas, power generation, telecommunications, transportation, and infrastructure sectors (See USMCA’s Annex 14-D on Mexico – US Investment Disputes).

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which includes Mexico and 11 other countries, also allows ISDS suits. Canadian firms, including Almaden and Almadex, used this to sue Mexico in 2024 after their mining concessions were canceled for violating rights of indigenous communities in Ixtacamaxtitlán, in the state of Puebla. Canada, for its own part, has been sued under the TPP by the Australian mining companies Riversdale Resources and Hancock Prospecting.

The United Kingdom recently managed to remove ISDS privileges between itself and New Zealand under the TPP by arguing that a bilateral free trade agreement between the two countries does not contain this dispute mechanism. If Mexico and Canada removed ISDS clauses from the USMCA, why should they have to maintain them in the TPP?

In this time of tumultuous tri-national political relations, we the people of Mexico, Canada, and the US should seek opportunities for positive change that elevate human rights over corporate privileges.

This piece was translated to English from La Jornada by Chris Mills Rodrigo.

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Previously Published on inequality.org with Creative Commons License

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