parties from all three countries are on their way to finalize a number of major changes to the existing USMCA after pressure from Congress, with the stand-still finally being broken the bill might finally be sent to the House.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland is heading to Mexico City to signal Canada’s approval for more changes to the North American trade agreement.
The leaders of Canada, the United States and Mexico signed what was, at the time, portrayed as the final text of the agreement over a year ago, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
But congressional Democrats in Washington were unwilling to proceed with ratification of the deal as originally signed, after the American labour movement and others criticized it as insufficient in several ways, including enforcing the new deal’s higher labour and environmental standards in Mexico.
Now the long wait for ratification in the U.S. appears to be over. After months of negotiations, The Associated Press reported Monday that congressional Democrats may be satisfied with the text of changes proposed by Donald Trump’s trade representative, Robert Lighthizer. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is meeting with senior Democrats Monday evening to study the changes but has not yet signed off on the new language.
Will have to see what’s in it, but if there’s not substantial changes there’s no way Trump is going to win Pennsylvania Michigan or Wisconsin. Last I saw the average wage, I think it’s $16, included management and executive pay so 95% of the jobs are going to stay in Mexico; that’s not going to cut it.
WASHINGTON — Mexico’s government said on Wednesday progress was being made toward revising a new North American trade pact that will sharply reduce protections for biologic drugs, in what will be a setback for U.S. pharmaceutical companies.
Mexico approved the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) this year, but U.S. ratification has been held up by Democratic lawmakers pressing the Trump administration for changes including steps on the drug protections.
Dems taking a victory lap now invoking Richard Trumka and “without the Democrat leadership this would have never happened”. And “the Trump administration sent us a flawed proposal “
As I understand there were changes made so the Dems would agree?
Somebody needed to get paid or sumpin’??