Out with the old: Trump to kill old NAFTA to push Congress to approve USMCA
Posted December 2, 2018 5:53 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump says he intends to tell Congress that he plans to terminate NAFTA in an effort to pressure lawmakers on Capitol Hill to approve its recently negotiated successor.
Trump, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto signed the new U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement at the start of G20 meetings Friday in Argentina.
Trump was on board Air Force One on his way back from Buenos Aires when he declared he would terminate NAFTA, a move that gives lawmakers six months to approve its replacement.
A number of Democrats in Congress have indicated they don’t like the deal in its current form and say it will require more stringent enforcement mechanisms for new labour rules and protections for the environment in order to win their support.
Some Republicans see problems, too: Florida Sen. Marco Rubio says the deal — called USMCA by the U.S. and CUSMA by Canada — gives agricultural producers in Mexico an unfair advantage that could put seasonal growers in his state out of business.
Trade experts have long suspected Trump, who has made beating up on NAFTA a central feature of his political career, might play the termination card in an effort to light a fire under the deal’s critics.
The Canadian Press
