[CTC] After ‘excellent’ meeting with USTR, Pascrell weighs prospects for NAFTA

[Arthur Stamoulis]

INSIDE US TRADE
After ‘excellent’ meeting with USTR, Pascrell weighs prospects for USMCA
November 16, 2018 at 4:08 PM
 
After speaking with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Thursday, Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) said the two were on the same page on changes that must be made for the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement to receive support from Democrats.
 
“It was excellent -- we mostly talked about NAFTA and our procedures and the time element -- the time factor,” Pascrell told Inside U.S. Trade. “He knows -- I’ve laid [my principles] out to him as well as to the International Trade Commission. I laid out my principles a year ago and we are going to stick to those principles. Lighthizer has no problem with those principles.”
 
Lighthizer has said he expected congressional Democrats to be in favor of deal he negotiated.
 
According to Pascrell, Democratic votes will be cast in favor of the deal only “if our principles are responded to in a tangible way.”
 
Pascrell has called for the inclusion of enforceable labor and environmental provisions in the new pact as well as language addressing currency manipulation, among other requests. In an Oct. 1 statement <https://insidetrade.com/node/164561> on the deal, he said he would be focused on “whether this agreement holds out the promise for creating jobs and raising wages for Mexican and American workers.”
 
“I am not interested in supporting a new deal that has all of the flaws of the old deal baked into it,” he said.
 
The lawmaker, who is the ranking member of the House Ways & Means trade subcommittee, is vying <https://insidetrade.com/node/164937> to chair the panel in the 116th Congress. Reps. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Ron Kind (D-WI) may also be considering the position, Inside U.S. Trade has learned. Both have been critical of the Trump administration’s trade policies, especially the imposition of tariffs.
 
Blumenauer has been pushing Democratic leaders to create a new infrastructure financing subcommittee, a Democratic source told Inside U.S. Trade. Asked on Friday if Blumenauer was interested in chairing the trade subcommittee, the source said “we will have to see how things shake out.”
 
Pascrell’s discussion with USTR followed his Nov. 15 testimony <https://insidetrade.com/node/165013> before the U.S. International Trade Commission, where the lawmaker asked commissioners weighing the economic impacts of USMCA to carefully examine key provisions. Specifically, he questioned how the deal would impact the U.S. manufacturing sector and “integrated supply chains therein,” as well as whether companies will “continue to be incentivized to offshore jobs in search of lower-wage labor under the new agreement.” He also asked the ITC to pinpoint any “new export opportunities” the deal would provide to U.S. businesses and what “if any, imports can be expected to increase as a result of this agreement.”
 
Pascrell, on Friday, told Inside U.S. Trade the “biggest thing I am concerned about” is “getting the implementing language” for the deal in place -- legislation that many Democrats have pointed to as a vehicle to address their concerns about the deal.
 
The congressional countdown to a USMCA vote is initiated by the president submitting to Congress -- on a day when the House and Senate are in session -- a draft implementing bill and a statement of administrative action, along with supporting information. Once the draft implementing bill is submitted, the House Ways & Means Committee is required to vote on it within 45 session days. The House must act within 15 session days of the committee vote. The Senate Finance Committee is required to vote on the bill within 15 session days of the House vote, and the Senate must act within 15 session days of the Finance Committee decision.
 
In September, several Democrats on the House Ways & Means Committee said the earliest Congress was likely to vote <https://insidetrade.com/node/164513> on USMCA was February or March.
 
Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA) said on Friday that she was concerned about the cultural carveout Canada won in USMCA, which is aimed at protecting Canadian creative industries. Asked whether she would vote for USMCA, Chu told Inside U.S. Trade she was “disturbed” by the exemption, reiterating concerns she voiced after a Sept. 27 meeting <https://insidetrade.com/node/164513> with Lighthizer.
 
But Craig Albright, vice president of legislative strategy at BSA | The Software Alliance, said after meetings with both parties on Capitol Hill he was confident the deal would receive broad support. “We think significant votes will be there and it would be great to get it done early,” he told Inside U.S. Trade.
 
“This agreement will probably have a little bit of a different coalition than [FTAs have] had in the past. There are some elements of the agreement that are new and unique and will include support from some groups that have had concerns about trade in the past. There is a real opportunity to maybe even have a broader group of members of congress supporting the agreement,” he said.
 
And while the Democrats “may have questions,” Albright continued, “what we are hearing is we expect there will be a number of Dems who will be supportive of the agreement.” -- Isabelle Hoagland (ihoagland at iwpnews.com <mailto:ihoagland at iwpnews.com>)
 
 
 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20181119/07c9b1ea/attachment.html>