The Canadian Minister-Counselor for Trade said negotiators on the new NAFTA solved the roster problem in the old Chapter 20 of NAFTA, which was that any country could block the appointment of panelists in a dispute (see 1807230029). "That particular issue is a dramatic improvement from NAFTA 1 and NAFTA 2," Colin Bird said March 8 during an International Trade Update conference hosted by Georgetown's law school. President Donald Trump said on March 8 about the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement that "we’ll be submitting [it] to Congress very shortly," and said the deal is "a great deal for the United States."
Eight of the 10 members of Arizona's congressional delegation, including both senators, have signed a letter to the Commerce Secretary arguing that the suspension of the Mexico tomato agreement is not in the national interest. "We encourage the Administration to continue to craft agricultural trade policy that seeks to strengthen the industry nationally, not one that is calibrated around regional or seasonal interests," the March 1 letter said. They encouraged Commerce to revise the tomato suspension agreement rather than terminate it without a replacement, because the latter move would create uncertainty in the supply chain and could trigger retaliation against agriculture exports.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Feb. 25 - March 1 in case they were missed.
The American Apparel and Footwear Association wants NAFTA to stay in place while Congress is working on ratifying its replacement, it announced March 4. "More than 200,000 American jobs in our industry are supported by NAFTA. We are calling on Congress to approve the USMCA this year and for the Administration to quickly and seamlessly implement it,” said Rick Helfenbein, AAFA president and CEO. The organization had previously joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce-organized USMCA Coalition (see 1902250024) to push for passage of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement to replace NAFTA.
The new NAFTA will reverse outsourcing decisions in the auto industry, the U.S. Trade Representative's annual report on the trade agenda said, and one of the administration's top priorities for 2019 is to get Congress to ratify it. The report, which spends 26 pages on this year's agenda and the rest laying out the status of current free trade agreements, negotiations and enforcement actions during 2018, was released late March 1. Generally, the report defended the administration's actions, arguing they're not protectionist but rather pro-worker, and noting that both imports and exports grew in high single digits during the first 11 months of 2018.
Although the main topic of the hearing was China, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told House Ways and Means Committee members repeatedly Feb. 27 that if they don't ratify the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, there will be no trade agenda for the next several years. "If we don’t pass USMCA, it says we don’t have a consensus," he said. Lighthizer also said: "It’s clearly better than its predecessor, it’s no question. Millions and millions of people are affected [by NAFTA]. You just have to pass it."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce-organized USMCA Coalition launched Feb. 26, with many of the major trade players -- UPS, the Detroit automakers, the farm bureau, the American Apparel and Footwear Association -- and some notable absentees -- foreign automakers, aerospace firms.
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin says there shouldn't be steel and aluminum tariffs on Canadian products, but expressed confidence that the Trump administration will make the situation right eventually. Bevin is a Republican who leads a state that is third-highest in auto industry jobs as a proportion of the workforce. "I wish people would just have patience," he said at a Feb. 21 event sponsored by the Canadian American Business Council. He suggested the reason the tariffs are still in place is "there's a limited amount of bandwidth" at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and they have "a limited amount of ability to fight all these fires at once."
Jerry Dias, national president of Canada's UNIFOR syndicate, said that before NAFTA, Canada had a small trade surplus in goods with the world, but now it has a $120 billion deficit. He said that General Motors, while closing plants in Canada, doubled its capacity in Mexico. Mexican consumers buy 240,000 GM vehicles a year, and Mexico is on the cusp of producing 1 million vehicles, he said. "And guess where those jobs come from? Canada and the United States." Dias said Canada has lost 500,000 manufacturing jobs in the nearly 25 years that NAFTA has been in place. "Tell me why I should celebrate?"
An alliance of trade groups and business groups -- including PhRMA, the National Chicken Council and the International Association of Drilling Contractors -- is funding the Pass USMCA Coalition, which will lobby for ratification of the new NAFTA, called the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Rick Dearborn, former deputy chief of staff for President Donald Trump, is executive director of the group, and former Obama administration Commerce secretary Gary Locke is honorary chairman.