Mexico vows labour rights with eye on new US trade deal

AUS Democratic lawmaker said a meeting with Mexican officials geared at speeding up ratification of a North American trade deal was “excellent,” after Mexico’s president vowed union freedoms, higher wages and other labour rights.

US Congressman Bill Pascrell, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee delegation that met with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, suggested all sides were getting closer to an agreement.

“We’ve all got to get our act together, and we’re moving, we’re making progress,” he said after the meeting.

The USMCA, which would replace the $1tn North American Free Trade Agreement, risks getting bogged down in the 2020 US presidential election race if US lawmakers do not ratify it soon.

Democrats controlling the US House of Representatives hold the key to ratifying the deal, negotiated last year after President Donald Trump said the existing North American Free Trade Agreement was unfavourable to US workers and businesses.

Lopez Obrador called for ratification as soon as possible in his morning news conference ahead of the meeting and pledged to enforce a labour reform enacted by his leftleaning government.

“The reform is so that... workers can freely choose their representatives, and so there is union democracy and better wages,” he said.

After the meeting Jesus Seade, Mexico’s deputy foreign minister for North America, said he expected House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to move ahead with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) by early November.

Seade has been leading negotiations with US officials seeking to placate Democratic concerns about enforcement of tougher labour and environmental provisions in the new deal.

Senate finance committee chairman Chuck Grassley and Representative Kevin Brady, top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, urged Democrats to move quickly on the trade agreement.

“With election year politics upon us, time isn’t on our side. But the window of opportunity hasn’t closed yet. Democrats must act now,” they said in a joint statement.

Mexico’s Congress has already approved the deal. It also needs ratification from Canadian lawmakers.

Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard called the meeting with the delegation of House Democrats, led by House Ways and Means Committee chairman Richard E Neal, “effective.”

He told reporters the next three weeks would be a “decisive phase” for the pact, and that officials would send US lawmakers a document next week detailing the issues discussed, including Mexico’s labour reform.

An impeachment inquiry into Trump, which could delay passage of the USMCA, was not discussed with the delegation, Seade said.

Meanwhile US trade groups pressed lawmakers to approve the deal and not allow the inquiry to postpone it.

Ann Wilson, chief lobbyist for the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association, said the industry had delayed key investments given continued uncertainty over the agreement a year after it was signed by the three countries’ leaders.