U.S., Canada and Mexico sign trade pact
According to the Associated Press, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a revised North American trade pact with the leaders of Canada and Mexico on November 30, declaring the deal a major victory for workers.
According to the Associated Press, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a revised North American trade pact with the leaders of Canada and Mexico on November 30, declaring the deal a major victory for workers. The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) is meant to replace the 24-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which Trump has long denigrated as a “disaster.”
Each country’s legislature still must approve, which may prove difficult since Democrats will control the House come January. According to Business Insider, the day after the new agreement was signed Trump threatened to begin the formal process to pull the United States out of the existing NAFTA. That would give Congress little option but to approve the USMCA.
In many ways USMCA preserves the status quo established by NAFTA: a regional trade bloc that allows most products to travel between the United States, Canada, and Mexico duty free. It does, however, make some changes to the way business is done in North America. It updates the trade pact to reflect the rise of the digital economy since the original NAFTA took effect nearly a quarter century ago. It also gives U.S. dairy farmers a bit more access to the protected Canadian market.
In response to the signing of the new trade agreement, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue released the following statement: “The new USMCA makes important specific changes that are beneficial to our agricultural producers. We have secured greater access to the Mexican and Canadian markets and lowered barriers for many of our products. The deal eliminates Canada’s unfair Class 6 and Class 7 milk pricing schemes, opens additional access to U.S. dairy into Canada, and imposes new disciplines on Canada’s supply management system. The agreement also preserves and expands critical access for U.S. poultry and egg producers and addresses Canada’s discriminatory wheat grading process to help U.S. wheat growers along the border become more competitive. This is good news for American farmers and we now need Congress to follow suit and enact the necessary implementing legislation.”