November 13, 2025
If we truly want to end violence and build lasting peace in the Mexico–U.S. region, governments and society must ensure that no one is above the law, particularly the powerful corporations that have long profited from binational collaboration at the expense of labor rights, human dignity, and community well-being.
For decades, free trade agreements between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, in all their rebrandings and iterations, promised jobs, development, and “economic harmonization.” Instead, as the testimonies of workers, migrants in transit, Indigenous communities, and those facing environmental destruction across the three countries later made clear, these agreements and the money behind them devastated livelihoods and deepened inequality, just like other recent transnational policies.
That is why, since the implementation of NAFTA in 1994 and now under its updated version, the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), Global Exchange has worked with thousands of union leaders, community organizers, Indigenous leaders, victims of U.S. gun violence, and civil society organizations to insist that corporate profit should not be placed above human rights or the rights of nature.
Over the past three months, as the Trump Administration begins its first USMCA review, we have worked tirelessly with leaders and organizations from Mexico, the U.S., and Canada, including those in the People’s Movement for Peace and Justice (PMPJ), to build a united front demanding a human rights-centered approach to this agreement.
You might wonder whether this makes sense under a government with a pro-corporate and anti-rights agenda. We believe it does, and strongly.
The U.S. government has relied on pitting people and nations against each other and on threatening those who challenge its terror tactics, known as tariffs. We are responding with more organizing, more unity, and more cross-border action.
Please continue to support our work to dismantle corporate privileges and advance human rights.
On October 21 and 22, 2025, more than one hundred social movements, farmers, labor groups, environmental advocates, academics, and human rights organizations met at the Mexico City Human Rights Commission for the National Advocacy Assembly on USMCA. From a critical and pluralistic perspective, participants analyzed the impacts of the USMCA across labor, environment, agriculture, migration, and human security, denouncing the inequalities and human rights violations that this economic model has intensified. Last week, we presented the conclusions of this historic gathering at a press conference. See some of the coverage here:
- Somos el Medio: Más de 90 organizaciones presentan declaratoria conjunta por la soberanía, la justicia y la dignidad de los pueblos
- Reporte Índigo: T-MEC: Activistas exigen la creación de un capítulo sobre derechos humanos
- La Jornada: Colectivos llaman a incluir a trabajadores y pueblos originarios en la revisión del T-MEC
- Rompeviento TV: Cobertura de la conferencia de prensa (video)
From November 17 through 19, we will bring together a delegation of leaders from Mexico and the U.S., including members of PMPJ and allied movements, for three days of advocacy, dialogue, and strategic organizing to build a common front capable of confronting the corporate agenda and advancing a cross-border agreement grounded in peace, human rights, and justice.
We will present our demands at a press conference on November 17 at 9:00 AM PST / 12:00 PM EST outside the U.S. Trade Representative’s building.
If you are in D.C., we invite you to join us. For those watching from afar, you can tune in through our YouTube channel and social media as we launch our advocacy week.
Join us, in person or online, and help us continue building a united front that puts people over profit.