Now for NAFTA 2.0
Republicans criticized Democrats for stalling on new trade deal — now they’re doing it.
Longtime Superman fans will remember the man of steel’s escapades in a “Bizarro” world where everything was the opposite of what it should be. That fairly describes Republicans such as Texas Sen. John Cornyn who have suddenly lost their enthusiasm for a new trade deal to replace the 26-yearold North American Free Trade Agreement.
It’s not that Cornyn and Sen. Pat Toomey (R.-Pa.), a former president of the pro-trade Club for Growth political action committee, are opposed to a better NAFTA. But they think the negotiated deal announced Tuesday smells too Democratic. So, after complaining for more than a year that Democrats were unduly stalling action on President Donald Trump’s proposed U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, they want to delay voting on it.
“My concern is that what the administration presented has now been moved demonstrably to Democrats, the direction they wanted,” said Cornyn, who just two weeks ago told opinion editors in Texas that approving the USMCA was his top priority. Now, he’s particularly concerned that the new proposal has won the endorsement of AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka. Anything that gets the labor union’s support “could be problematic,” he said.
His concern was shared by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who now says the Senate will be too busy with Trump’s possible impeachment and other matters to take up the USMCA proposal before late January at the soonest. “From my perspective, it’s not as good as I had hoped,” McConnell said. “But we’ll have to take a look at the whole package.”
Not so concerned was Trump, who in a tweet Tuesday called the deal negotiated by his trade adviser, Robert E. Lighthizer, “the best and most important trade deal ever made by the USA. Good for everybody — Farmers, Manufacturers, Energy, Unions — tremendous support. Importantly, we will finally end our Country’s worst Trade Deal, NAFTA!”
If that’s how the president feels about USMCA, he should light a fire under McConnell, who up to now has always appeared amenable to practically anything Trump suggests. Legislatures in Mexico and Canada similarly need to approve the revised agreement.
Cornyn shouldn’t need to be reminded of how big this is for Texas; he’s talked about it often enough. Texas accounted for nearly a quarter of all U.S. trade with Mexico and Canada last year, exporting $137 billion in oil, natural gas, petrochemicals, auto parts and other products to those NAFTA countries. The work to provide those exports supported more than 900,000 jobs.
Who knows how many of those jobs will go away if the new agreement fails and Trump follows through on his vow to pull America out of NAFTA. Since NAFTA’s passage in 1993, regional trade between the three partner countries rose from less than $300 billion to more than $1 trillion. Canada and Mexico account for more than a third of all U.S. exports, with China placing a distant third.
That measure of trade, so vital to the nation, and especially Texas, shouldn’t be dismissed by Cornyn and other Republicans who think the deal negotiated by Trump’s representative isn’t pro-business enough.
One measure they dislike requires Mexico to strengthen its labor laws to bolster unions. Another, opposed by the U.S. pharmaceutical industry, would limit the length of patent protection for biologics and other drugs.
But, hey, it’s not as if the Democrats got everything they wanted. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wanted to ditch language in NAFTA that could be used by social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to avoid lawsuits regarding content posted by users.
Pelosi said her failure was “disappointing,” but she nonetheless supports passage of USMCA. Trumka, too, told his members that the deal is “far from perfect.”
That’s the nature of compromise. Cornyn and McConnell should keep in mind the trade agreement won’t be written in stone. Unlike NAFTA, which hasn’t been significantly revised in decades, USMCA includes a required review after six years.
If something isn’t working or updates need to be made, the three partner nations can do it without going through the motion of reinventing a wheel that needs only to be fixed.
Congress should pass USMCA, this year.