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Many of us who have been fighting the wholesale introduction of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into the environment have known all along how the U.S. government was being influenced by the US-based transnational corporations that profit from genetic engineering and the export-oriented, agribusiness model of agriculture in general. Recently released Wikileaks cables document just how close that relationship has become, demonstrating clearly how the U.S. Department of State has become a virtual agency for brazenly promoting the private interests of Monsanto Corporation abroad. Other US government institutions, namely the FDA, the USDA and the US Trade Representative are also in lockstep and ‘revolving door” with the interests of Monsanto as well as other corporations that promote the privatization of life, sell agro-chemicals and GMO and hybrid seeds essential to expand the agenda of capital-intensive agricultural industrialization across the planet.   

U.S. diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks reveal the Bush administration drew up ways to retaliate against Europe for refusing to use genetically modified seeds. In 2007, then-U.S. ambassador to France Craig Stapleton was concerned about France’s decision to ban cultivation of genetically modified corn produced by biotech giant Monsanto. He also warned that a new French environmental review standard could spread anti-biotech policy across Europe.

Ambassador Stapleton goes on to write, quote, 

“Country team Paris recommends that we calibrate a target retaliation list that causes some pain across the EU since this is a collective responsibility, but that also focuses in part on the worst culprits. The list should be measured rather than vicious and must be sustainable over the long term, since we should not expect an early victory,” he wrote. (Democracy Now, 12/28/10)