Senate Approves USMCA Trade Deal Replacing NAFTA

by Matt Posky

January 17th, 2020 12:50 PM

senate approves usmca trade deal replacing nafta

The U.S. Senate approved changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement on Thursday, effectively replacing the 26-year-old deal with the new United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement. USMCA embraces stronger automotive content rules for the region, updates language for new technologies, and enacts sweeping labor protections aimed at uplifting the Mexican workforce. As a byproduct, it’s also likely to discourage automakers from isolating themselves south of the U.S. border in an effort to secure cheap labor.

Passing with a 89-10 vote in the Republican-controlled Senate, USMCA also allows President Donald Trump to keep his campaign promise of replacing NAFTA — a pact he often referred to as “the worst deal in history.”

Approved by the House in December of 2019, USMCA was finalized in 2018 and will now replace the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump vowed for years to renegotiate or outright abandon NAFTA, which he faulted with the loss of millions of U.S. factory jobs to Mexico. Despite strong headwinds throughout negotiations, the deal received widespread Republican support in Congress.

It also had much more support from Democrats than many expected. However, a few high-profile politicians on the left have faulted USMCA for not addressing environmental issues that were also missed by NAFTA. “Despite the fact that it includes very good labor provisions, I am voting against USMCA because it does not address climate change, the greatest threat facing the planet,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.

Senator Bernie Sanders expressed similar environmental concerns, adding he believed USMCA would fail to “stop the outsourcing of American jobs to Mexico, China and other low-wage countries.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren — who is also vying to run against Trump in the next election — voted to support.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s office wasted no time in promoting the increased environmental protections in the renegotiated deal, saying USMCA goes far beyond addressing air and water pollution by ensuring violations are easily enforceable. But environmental groups like Sierra Club seem largely unconvinced. It said more needs to be done to stop companies from polluting.

For our purposes, the most noteworthy regulatory changes include a shift that requires increased North American content in cars and trucks. At least 75 percent of vehicle content must come from the region to receive tariff-free treatment, with additional mandates imposed on North American steel and aluminum. Likewise, USMCA stipulates that 40-45 percent of vehicle content must come from areas paying over $16 an hour.

Mexican legislators approved USMCA last month. Canada is expected to revisit the matter once parliament is back in session on January 27th.

#AutoRules #AutomotiveIndustry #Congress #Government #IndustryNews #NAFTA #TradeDeal #UnitedStates-Mexico-CanadaAgreement #USMCA

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12 of 132 comments

Master Baiter on Jan 18, 2020

Trump is winning on multiple fronts and will cruise to re-election in 2020. The ignorance in the comments regarding climate change never ceases to amaze. There is a whole range of future climate scenarios generated by the models; the worst case scenarios rely on positive feedback effects of increased CO2. Anyone who knows anything about control systems would know that, based on the relative stability of the climate over the last billion years, the likelihood of positive feedback in the climate system is vanishingly small. In fact, strong negative feedbacks must be present to keep the climate as stable as it has been. The media latches onto the worst case scenarios and reports that to the uninformed masses to generate clicks. The government loves the worst case scenarios because it gives them an excuse to tax energy at confiscatory rates in the name of saving the planet.

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- HotPotato on Jan 18, 2020
  
  State your credentials to make that determination. Do you know more than the world's leading researchers on the topic, who are in near-total agreement on it? If something's true, it doesn't make a dime's worth of difference if you "believe in it" or not. You don't have to believe that gravity is real. But if you walk off a cliff, you'll find out.
  
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- Master Baiter on Jan 18, 2020
  
  @HotPotato "State your credentials to make that determination." For one thing, I'm a scientist. I can also read. From the most recent IPCC report concerning projections of future warming: "Relative to 1850–1900, global surface temperature change for the end of the 21st century (2081–2100) is projected to likely exceed 1.5°C for RCP4.5, RCP6.0 and RCP8.5 (high confidence). Warming is likely to exceed 2°C for RCP6.0 and RCP8.5 (high confidence), more likely than not to exceed 2°C for RCP4.5 (medium confidence), but unlikely to exceed 2°C for RCP2.6 (medium confidence). {2.2.1}" Real sciences don't use words like "likely" and "high confidence."
  
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- TrailerTrash on Jan 19, 2020
  
  @HotPotato state your credentials??? it has come to this? hotpotato, do you have a yard? boundaries around it?\ how would you control the entire earth's temperature? you, yourself, what are you doing to change it right now, today? tell the class all the things you and your family are doing to save this wonderful planet. from a person who thinks "consensus" is science????? so we have artdaily claiming it is man made, suggest third world cannot be made to participate. then says birth control is a possible solution...and really, THAT will be followed tooth n nail by third world contries. and then people taking manipulated data to keep their funding coming group thinking consensus as the end all. so, like i said before, group thinking was the sun rotated around the earth and the earth was flat, so the great consensus was not long ago.
  
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- Lou_BC on Jan 19, 2020
  
  @Master Baiter “high confidence.” et al...... scientists do look at "confidence limits". Basically, the higher the "limits" the more likely the results are going to occur. That quote you posted is a statistical way of showing probability. "Likely" definition = "such as well might happen or be true; probable." "In science, a "fact" typically refers to an observation, measurement, or other form of evidence that can be expected to occur the same way under similar circumstances. However, scientists also use the term "fact" to refer to a scientific explanation that has been tested and confirmed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing it or looking for additional examples."
  
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- Thelaine on Jan 20, 2020
  
  MB - Excellent comment. Truth.
  
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- Dont.fit.in.cars on Jan 20, 2020
  
  “ worst case scenarios rely on positive feedback effects of increased CO2“ Best explanation on CO2 and its effect on environment. https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2019/11/what_the_university_of_alabamas_football_stadium_tells_us_about_co2.html
  
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- HotPotato on Jan 21, 2020
  
  @TrailerTrash If you do not understand that the scientific method is what corrects misunderstandings, including those that have achieved consensus, I cannot help you.
  
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- Vulpine on Jan 21, 2020
  
  @HotPotato Scientific consensus is Peer Review--it means that when a theorem is published, other scientists attempt to duplicate the study to see if they get the same results. AS YET, the argument you have forwarded has not received any form of peer review and therefore is only a theory without any independent confirmation. That is the Scientific Method.
  
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- Vulpine on Jan 21, 2020
  
  @dont.fit.: CO2 is not what you need to worry about; it's only an indicator. It's methane and other gasses that the rising temperatures will release and ARE releasing, which are true greenhouse gasses. Even excess water vapor in the upper atmosphere, as seen from the white contrails from jet aircraft (and prop aircraft around 20,000 feet) is considered a greenhouse gas.
  
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Dont.fit.in.cars on Jan 21, 2020

Is the thread dead yet?

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- Inside Looking Out on Jan 21, 2020
  
  Da.
  
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