Senate OKs North America trade deal
WASHINGTON – A revamped trade agreement with Mexico and Canada designed to create hundreds of thousands of new U.S. jobs is headed to President Donald Trump for his signature following the Senate’s overwhelming passage of the deal Thursday.
The vote to approve the pact, known as the United States-Mexico-Canada agreement, was 89-10. It’s a major rewrite of trade rules with the nation’s neighbors and closest trading partners relating to agriculture, manufacturing and services.
The bill garnered the same kind of broad bipartisan support the trade measure received when USMCA overwhelmingly passed the House last month by a 385-41 vote.
The agreement will benefit all corners of the U.S. economy, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor Thursday before the vote.
“Farmers. Growers. Cattlemen. Manufacturers. Small businesses. Big businesses,” the Kentucky Republican said. “This is a major step for our whole country.”
The new agreement will replace rules for moving products among the three countries first crafted under the North American Free Trade Agreement, which essentially eliminated tariffs on most goods traded among the three countries.
Trump and the leaders of both parties strongly support the measure, proving that Congress can unite, even during the bitter partisan division over impeachment.
Trump relentlessly ridiculed NAFTA as the “worst trade deal ever” when he was running for president three years ago, arguing it put American workers at a competitive disadvantage. Other critics, including Democrats, conceded NAFTA was outdated and needed to be revised.
Most Republicans, led by farmstate and industrial belt lawmakers, supported it because of expanded trading opportunities championed by Trump. Democrats who didn’t like the initial proposal have gotten behind it after changes were made to beef up enforcement of labor standards.
“This new trade deal is a modest improvement,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, DMass., a 2020 presidential candidate, said during a presidential debate in Iowa on Tuesday night. “It will give some relief to our farmers. It will give some relief to our workers. I believe we accept that relief, we try to help the people who need help, and we get up the next day and fight for a better trade deal.”
Republicans and the president have complained about how long it took to complete the negotiations, but the talks resulted in a rare mix of support for the trade deal.
The AFL-CIO, an association of trade unions, endorsed the measure, as did scores of business and farm groups. The biggest holdouts were environmental groups, which continue their opposition, saying the deal doesn’t address climate change. Indeed, they contend the agreement would contribute to rising temperatures.