Of the 10 Congress members who traveled to Mexico last weekend to evaluate the NAFTA rewrite as part of a congressional delegation, one was already planning to vote for the deal, others were leaning yes, and some others have always opposed free trade deals. For some of those who were leaning yes, their conversations with government officials and institutions that tackle environmental problems near the border moved them closer to voting yes. For others who were already skeptical, they returned even more skeptical.
Could Florida's 27-member delegation vote no on the new NAFTA because seasonality provisions for antidumping laws didn't make it into the agreement? There "certainly have been conversations about that," according to Rep. Stephanie Murphy, a pro-trade Democrat from Florida, who added, "And I think Georgia is another one of the states that is deeply interested in seeing a resolution."
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While Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., says progress is being made in the weekly meetings with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, he said he doubts the working group and USTR will have a meeting of the minds on any of the four planks they're negotiating on in the NAFTA rewrite. The issues outstanding are enforcement, the environment, labor and the biologic drug exclusivity period.
Leaders of the generally pro-trade New Democrat Coalition warned the U.S. trade representative not to send an implementing bill for the new NAFTA to Congress on July 9. Rep. Derek Kilmer, chairman of the New Dems, and Rep. Gregory Meeks, co-chairman of the group's trade task force, spoke to reporters July 8 about why they sent a letter that day to USTR warning him off.
Even as one panelist said the changes to NAFTA won't really affect her Fortune 500 company, other panelists at the American Association of Exporters and Importers Annual Conference June 27 in Washington agreed that the deal's rewrite is important for the precedent it sets in future trade negotiations.
Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade Gil Kaplan touted trade enforcement, the NAFTA rewrite, and tax cuts and deregulation in a keynote speech to the American Association of Exporters and Importers Annual Conference June 27 in Washington.
Trade lawyers talking about changes to NAFTA's rule of origin said they're fairly optimistic the trade deal rewrite will be ratified in Congress in 2019. But aside from the auto sector, which has a multiyear transition period, they're concerned that by the time ratification comes, there won't be time for importers and exporters to adjust by Jan. 1, 2020, when the replacement agreement is supposed to be in force.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for June 17-21 in case they were missed.
House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said after a June 25 hearing on Mexican labor reform that the Democrats asking for changes to the NAFTA rewrite are asking for changes that are "relatively narrow." "Our hope is we can move with dispatch, get our concerns resolved, strengthen the agreement and move forward," he said, adding that trade deal votes "never get easy, putting them off."