‘Canada has done its part,’ Freeland says of NAFTA 2.0
Democrats demand changes to trade agreement before vote
As senior Democrats continued Wednesday to push for changes to the new NAFTA agreement, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland brushed aside the suggestion of reopening the negotiations.
“As far as the new NAFTA is concerned, Canada has done its part,” she told reporters after a meeting at the U.S. Capitol with Republican Sen. Jim Risch, chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee.
The negotiation, she said, was “very thorough,” and Canada has already “devoted a lot of time to negotiating the agreement.”
Freeland said she has confidence in President Donald Trump’s trade chief, Robert Lighthizer, who she said is solely responsible for shepherding the agreement through Congress. She said she would meet with Lighthizer and Senate finance committee chair Sen. Chuck Grassley on Thursday.
Though the leaders of Canada, Mexico and the U.S. have already signed the agreement, it will not replace the origi- nal NAFTA until it is approved by the legislatures of all three countries. The Democrats who control the House of Representatives signalled again on Wednesday that the approval process in the U.S. Congress will probably be slow and complicated.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer, the head of a House of Representatives trade subcommittee, said on Twitter, “Talking to other members, my strong first impression is that there’s a lot of work needed on access and cost of Rx drugs in NAFTA 2.0 to get committee support and House passage.”
“Many other significant concerns with provisions relating to the environment, labour, and enforcement all need strengthening. Trying to force consideration of this trade deal prematurely is not a recipe for success,” he continued.
Negotiations on the original NAFTA were reopened in 1993 in response to Democratic concerns. The Canadian government did not want to reopen those talks, either, but knew that was necessary to get the agreement finalized.
Some of the Republicans who control the Senate have expressed concern about the agreement, called the USMCA by Trump, particularly steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico.