The day after the House working group had its first meeting to hammer out changes to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the renegotiated NAFTA, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., a freshman Democrat from a swing district, one Republican and 12 other Democrats introduced a bill that seeks to shorten the biologics exclusivity period in U.S. law to five years. The new NAFTA requires Mexico to raise its exclusivity period from five to 10 years, and Canada to raise its period from eight to 10 years. Current U.S. law is 12 years.
Trade groups that are lobbying House members to ratify the new NAFTA say they are trying to talk through concerns, and the National Association of Manufacturers' representative said she's seeing positive momentum.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who's been working for months on a compromise bill to address national security tariffs, said that an introduction won't happen until after the August recess. "We're trying to get a consensus on [Section] 232s, that isn't the easiest thing," he said. "But we're making some progress." He said, speaking to reporters on June 19, that he'd had meetings on the bill that day.
The Mexican Senate voted to ratify the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on June 19, positioning Mexico to become first of the three countries to approve the renegotiated NAFTA. There have been some initial movements toward consideration of the deal by the U.S. Congress, and Canada is seen as likely following the U.S.'s lead before its legislature gets fully engaged (see 1906110040).
For weeks, Republicans in the House have been complaining that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn't moving fast enough to bring a vote to the floor on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. "USMCA is being held hostage by career politicians in Washington who are hell-bent on preventing President Trump from getting a win. A delay in approval of this agreement will hit the wallets of family farms in Illinois and across the country. The agriculture community is losing out because political gamesmanship is being placed in front of their interests," Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill., wrote in an op-ed published June 18 in the Washington Examiner.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce expects the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement to pass before Congress’ August recess, two Chamber of Commerce officials said, saying Democrats’ issues with the bill are “bridgeable.” “We do think that we can see USMCA move forward before the August break,” said John Murphy, the Chamber’s senior vice president for international policy. “We want to get on with it. We need the certainty that USMCA will provide.”
A bipartisan group of 23 lawmakers from Arizona, California and Texas objected to the possible inclusion of "seasonality" provisions within the implementing legislation for the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement in a June 14 letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. "Seasonality, whereby certain agricultural products could be subjected to numerous seasonal and regional dumping duties at various times throughout the year, runs counter to the spirit of a free trade agreement intended to tear down both tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade," the lawmakers said. "Using USMCA as a vehicle for pursuing seasonal agriculture trade remedies risks pitting different regions of the country against each other."
President Donald Trump may institute tariffs on goods from Mexico after withdrawing them if the Mexican legislature doesn't approve a part of the deal between the two countries, he said in June 10 tweets. "We have fully signed and documented another very important part of the Immigration and Security deal with Mexico, one that the U.S. has been asking about getting for many years. It will be revealed in the not too distant future and will need a vote by Mexico’s Legislative body!" he said. "We do not anticipate a problem with the vote but, if for any reason the approval is not forthcoming, Tariffs will be reinstated!" The two sides reached a deal on June 7 to avoid the tariffs (see 1906070081) with Mexico agreeing to play a bigger role in handling of migrants from Central America who seek asylum in the U.S., the two countries said in a June 7 joint statement.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., at a press conference with reporters June 4, said imposing tariffs on Mexico could affect the fate of the NAFTA rewrite in Congress but also suggested the discussions on how to fix the NAFTA rewrite can continue even under this cloud.
Members of Congress are hoping that President Donald Trump won't follow through with his threat, but are also talking about how they might respond if he does impose 5 percent tariffs on all Mexican imports.