[CTC] Democrats warn NAFTA reform dead without their support

[Arthur Stamoulis]

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/democrats-warn-nafta-reform-dead-without-their-support/article/2631576 <http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/democrats-warn-nafta-reform-dead-without-their-support/article/2631576>
 
Democrats warn NAFTA reform dead without their support

by Sean Higgins <http://washingtonexaminer.com/author/sean-higgins> | Aug 15, 2017, 1:12 PM <http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/democrats-warn-nafta-reform-dead-without-their-support/article/2631576> 
Trump Will Have Difficult Time Renegotiating NAFTA
 

Top Democratic lawmakers warned the Trump administration Tuesday that any reform of the North American Free Trade Agreement has to include their objectives for it to have any hope of passing Congress.

At the same time, the White House indicated it would rebuff them on releasing all details of the talks among the U.S., Canada and Mexico, a key demand of liberal groups. The talks begin Wednesday.

"We want to work with the administration to ensure that working people have a seat at the table," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., during a press conference hosted by the liberal group Public Citizen. "The support of the House Democrats is essential to crafting and passing a deal through Congress."

Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan concurred. "We want to work in good faith with the administration," he said, before criticizing President Trump for "flip-flopping" about whether China manipulates its currency and implying that the president may have business dealings in Mexico that would influence the negotiations. "We are concerned where his personal business interests lie," Ryan said.

A key request of Democrats and liberal groups has been that the U.S. release all details of the negotiations after each round: All of the proposals and counter-proposals and any changes agreed to by the parties. The U.S Trade Representative's Office rejected that Tuesday, telling reporters that it was important to keep the details under wraps during negotiations.

The office said the administration was "quite ambitious" in its goals for the talks and making every detail known would undermine that. Administration officials said they would, for example, seek to alter the deal's rules of origin for the percentage of parts from a particular country that must go into an item before it can be said to be manufactured there. The rules have been contentious since they determine whether an item can be labeled as "Made in the USA."

Under the current NAFTA rules, 62.5 percent of the parts in a car or light truck such as an SUV must come from the U.S. for the vehicle to deemed a U.S. product. Labor groups would like that percentage to be higher. Manufacturers that use parts from several countries or have manufacturing facilities in other countries argue that the standard already is high enough.

"In terms of the rules of origin, the overall goal is to address concerns about doing more to incentivize and create more manufacturing and more manufacturing jobs in the United States," an administration official told reporters. "I think each country expects benefits for itself from those rules of origin, and I think that's what you're seeing reflected in our objective statement."

DeLauro said the refusal to make details public was contrary to how European nations handle trade negotiations. She noted that Democrats had faced the same problem during the administration of former President Barack Obama's negotiation of the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.

"We faced an enormous amount of stonewalling on the TPP agreement. We tried in so many ways to have a dialogue with the previous administration," DeLauro said. Many of the issues negotiated in TPP are expected to be raised again in the NAFTA renegotiations.

Ryan said Democrats do not want to scrap NAFTA, stating that would create too much of a "shock to the system" and hurt the economy. "We have 20-25 years of supply chains and everything else that has evolved since NAFTA."
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