Pelosi Says Democrats Want to 'Get to Yes' on USMCA Ratification
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka tweeted earlier this week that workers "want to get to yes" on the NAFTA rewrite, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said May 2 that Democrats in the House do, too.
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Pelosi, who was responding to a question from International Trade Today on whether she wants to develop consensus in her caucus on how to change the biologics provision and what enforcement measures would be satisfactory, said she does, "and I would add to that, environmental provisions. The environmental issues are very important to us. As a Californian, I can attest to the need for us to improve the provisions there."
As the acting White House chief of staff noted earlier in the week (see 1904300055), Pelosi has the power to prevent a vote on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. It was Mick Mulvaney's remarks that Trumka was responding to, as Mulvaney said the deal could not be reopened to satisfy Democrats' demands.
Pelosi repeated the talking points she has for months on enforcement. "But the overarching issue is enforcement. You can have all the good language in the world that you want, but if you don’t have enforcement, you’re just having a conversation, you’re not having a real negotiation," she said. When pressed on whether Democrats are working on specific ideas for satisfactory enforcement, Pelosi replied, "There’s different suggestions, but I say it has to be part of the agreement, it can’t be a sidebar, a side letter or later legislation, or anything like that.
"But to your basic first question, yes, we would like to get to yes. I thought it would be easier than this because we’ve been clear about enforcement in any trade agreement, whether it’s with China, or whether it’s in our own hemisphere, that enforcement is key to all of it."