‘Do no harm’ in NAFTA talks, groups plead
U.S. industry representatives hail the deal as essential as Washington hearings begin
WASHINGTON— The fashion industry. The tile manufacturers. The wheat growers. The corn growers. Even the pet food lobby.
A variety of U.S. business interests arrived at the first day of Washington hearings on the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with an identically phrased plea to the Trump administration: “Do no harm.”
U.S. President Donald Trump calls NAFTA a “catastrophe” that privileges Mexico and Canada while hurting the U.S. But most of the industries that testified Tuesday described the deal as essential, albeit imperfect, and urged the administration to protect their gains above all else.
“Let’s not mess with what has worked,” said David Spooner, a lawyer representing the Tile Council of North America. “The industry is growing, and it is growing under NAFTA.”
“It is difficult to improve upon the duty-free unlimited access to Canada and Mexico. So please: Do no harm and do not jeopardize our access,” said Kevin Kester, presidentelect of the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.
“U.S. pet food makers have a reliable and profitable trading partner to our north,” said Peter Tabor, a vicepresident at the Pet Food Institute.
The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is strongly supportive of NAFTA. The hearing demonstrated how powerful U.S. corporate interests will serve as key Canadian allies, providing a domestic check on Trump’s protectionist instincts.
But it was not all kumbaya. At least five industry representatives pro- posed changes to aspects of their trade relationship with Canada. The breadth of their concerns — from dairy to steel to Super Bowl ads — underscores the complexity of the task before American, Canadian and Mexican negotiators when talks begin in August.
Some of the Canada-related issues may be easy to address. Shortly after a representative for U.S. wheat growers complained of Canada’s practice of automatically grading U.S. wheat imports as poor “feed-quality,” the president of Canada’s cereals industry group, Cam Dahl, said in an interview that they support the change the Americans want.
Other issues raised on Tuesday, though, do not have simple solutions.
An executive from the National Milk Producers Federation, Jaime Castaneda, slammed Canada’s dairy supply-management system, a longstanding U.S. gripe. And he claimed that Canada has now moved from unfair domestic protectionism to selling milk unfairly cheap on global markets.
An executive at the Dairy Farmers of Canada, Yves Leduc, said in an interview that the U.S. claims were self-serving, hypocritical and inaccurate.
The leader of the Ranchers-Cattlemen Action Legal Fund, Bill Bullard, urged the U.S. to use NAFTA talks to resurrect a law requiring that meat be labelled by its “country of origin.” The law, opposed by Canada, was repealed under Barack Obama in 2015.
Hollie Noveletsky, a board member at the American Institute of Steel Construction, complained that Canadian steel exports are driving American companies out of business. She claimed that underpriced “dumped” steel from countries outside North America is being imported by Canada and then redirected into the U.S. under NAFTA’s favour- able terms.
Eric Schwartz, a lawyer for the International Intellectual Property Alliance, a group representing industries that produce copyrighted material such as books and movies, complained of insufficiently strong incentives for Canadian Internet providers to crack down on piracy and illicit streaming. And he said Canada was using “overly broad exceptions” to deny U.S. publishers access to the education market.
National Football League executive Jocelyn Moore suggested that the NAFTA update could be used to crack down against the “discriminatory actions” Canada’s television regulator took against its intellectual property by allowing U.S. ads to air on Fox during the Super Bowl, allegedly hurting the ratings of the separate broadcast put on by Canadian rights-holder Bell Media.
The hearing will continue on Wednesday and Thursday.