Former Rep. Phil English, R-Pa., now co-chairman of Arent Fox's lobbying team, says the incentives are in the wrong place for House Democrats to ratify the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. English was featured on an Arent Fox Sept. 16 webinar on "working through the chaos" along with Grant Aldonas, a former top trade lawyer on the Senate Finance Committee, former Sen. Byron Dorgan and two trade lawyers. English said if the economy worsens, it hurts Trump, not House Democrats, and that the NAFTA rewrite faces "a great deal of opposition" from elements of the Democratic coalition. He said it may never get ratified if it doesn't get done in the next two months.
USMCA
The U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement is a free trade agreement between the three countries, also known as CUSMA in Canada and T-MEC in Mexico. Replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 2020, the agreement contains a unique sunset provision where, after six years (in 2026), any of the three parties may decide not to continue the agreement in its current form and begin a period of up to 10 years where USMCA provisions may be renegotiated.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, says he has not been able to see the written counterproposal on the NAFTA rewrite from the USTR to the House Democrat working group, but said that ending the ability to block panels in state-to-state dispute is under discussion. Grassley said his staff has had an overview of the administration's proposals to refine the new NAFTA, known as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, "and we look at it as something we can live with." He said he doesn't know how Democrats have received the counterproposal. "I think that’s more important than my reaction to it," he said.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue said that while there are already enough Democrats who want to vote for a new NAFTA to make a majority with Republicans, he understands that the administration will have to make adjustments on "two or three little issues" to get House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to bring it to a vote, and he said the Chamber "absolutely supports" those changes.
Although the Republican House members cheering for passage of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement outnumbered Democrats more than 3-to-1, both Republicans and Democrats who spoke at the Farmers for Free Trade Rally Sept. 12 said ratification is within reach. Former House Ways and Means Committee chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said, "I feel like we have moved to the 20-yard line." Rep. Henry Cuellar, a fellow Texan who is a Democrat, agreed. "We will get this done," he predicted. "We are very close."
The trade staff of the House Ways and Means Committee told Democrats who are anxious for a ratification vote on the new NAFTA that the rewrite "will be ready for a vote as soon as it is ready; no sooner, and also no later," in a memo that was structured as an imagined dialogue between a member who wants a vote and the committee chairman, who has a big say on when that vote happens.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Aug. 19-23 in case they were missed.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer expects Canada's Parliament to continue progress on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement in the fall following October elections, he said in recently posted written responses to House Ways and Means Committee members following a June 19 hearing (see 1906190062). "The Trudeau government has begun necessary steps to ratify the USMCA in its Parliament and has stated that it plans to move forward on implementation in tandem with the United States," he said. "The Canadian Parliament has adjourned for the summer and is not expected to return before federal elections are held on October 21, 2019. We anticipate that Canada will take up the legislation once a new government is seated later this fall, and we are confident that the Parliament will vote in favor of the Agreement."
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is reviewing the Section 321 provisions that allow for duty exemptions for low-value goods in light of "efforts to circumvent the requirements of the de minimis provisions in U.S. law," USTR Robert Lighthizer told lawmakers in recently released written responses to House Ways and Means Committee members following a June 19 hearing (see 1906190035). Asked about "the operation and impact of U.S. de minimis policy" by Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., Lighthizer said he's "particularly concerned" about those efforts to improperly use the exemption.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for July 29 - Aug. 2 in case they were missed.
Although 10 of the 27 members of the Senate Finance Committee asked U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to leave de minimis where it is -- including the chairman and ranking member -- the USTR has remained non-committal on whether the implementing bill will change U.S. law for the NAFTA region. As Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., put it in a brief hallway interview at the Capitol before the Senate recessed on Aug. 2, "He hasn’t said one way or the other on that."