[CTC] Mitch McConnell says a vote on Trump's NAFTA replacement won't happen until next year

Tue Oct 16 11:05:46 PDT 2018

Two articles below…

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/16/mitch-mcconnell-no-vote-on-trumps-nafta-replacement-until-2019.html <https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/16/mitch-mcconnell-no-vote-on-trumps-nafta-replacement-until-2019.html>

Mitch McConnell says a vote on Trump's NAFTA replacement won't happen until next year

By Mike Calia <https://www.cnbc.com/mike-calia/>
10/16/2018

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says that a vote on Trump's NAFTA replacement won't come until 2019, potentially setting up a showdown with Democrats if, as expected, they win a majority in the House.
The U.S., Mexico and Canada reached an 11th-hour deal late last month to keep much of the old North American Free Trade Agreement alive, with a few distinct changes.
The updated pact, which is now called the USMCA, still needs to be approved by each nation's legislatures.

The Senate's top Republican said Tuesday that a vote on President Donald Trump's NAFTA replacement won't come until 2019, potentially setting up a showdown with Democrats if, as expected, they win a majority in the House.

"That'll be a next year issue," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., told Bloomberg News <https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-16/mcconnell-says-senate-vote-on-new-nafta-deal-to-wait-until-2019>, citing procedural issues. "There's no question this will be on the top of the agenda."

Indeed, the legislative calendar for the rest of the year is tight. Lawmakers are campaigning for re-election ahead of next month's midterm election. Several other pressing issues await senators when they get back for the lame-duck session after the election, such as the farm bill <https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/28/looming-expiration-of-farm-bill-raises-risks-for-trade-promotion.html> and another deadline to fund the government.

The U.S., Mexico and Canada reached an 11th-hour deal late last month to keep much of the old North American Free Trade Agreement alive, with a few distinct changes. The updated pact, which is now called the USMCA, still needs to be approved by each nation's legislatures.

Some Republicans had been pushing for a vote on the deal this year, but it was always unlikely given the remaining priorities for this congressional term.
Democrats have been largely supportive of keeping NAFTA in place. Yet, if the party takes power in the House, its members could push for concessions and complicate the approval process. The GOP, meanwhile, is expected to hold onto or expand its slight majority in the Senate.

Key Republicans have also suggested that the refreshed trade agreement needs improvement. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., told CNBC earlier this month <https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/02/gop-sen-pat-toomey-congress-may-be-able-to-fix-new-trump-nafta-deal.html> "there's a possibility that we could address some of these what I consider flaws in the implementing legislation that Congress has to pass."

Even though the USMCA isn't officially in place, that hasn't stopped Trump from touting it on the campaign trail, particularly as he seeks to limit the political damage wrought by his tariffs and trade conflict with China and other nations.

"NAFTA has been one of the great disasters of all time and now we have a great and fair deal. We have a fair deal," the president said at a rally earlier this month in Minnesota <https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/05/trump-rallies-for-house-republicans-in-midterms-in-minnesota-kansas-iowa.html>.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/mcconnell-usmca-free-trade-vote-1.4864887 <https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/mcconnell-usmca-free-trade-vote-1.4864887>

No chance Congress will vote on USMCA this year, Mitch McConnell says

The free trade deal between Canada, the United States and Mexico that leaders from all three countries agreed to in principle recently is a ways away from becoming law, as the man in charge of the U.S. Senate says there's no chance lawmakers will vote on the pact before next year.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell told Bloomberg in an interview Tuesday that there's no chance the logistics can be worked out to ensure that the U.S.-Mexico-Canada-Agreement — or USMCA — will make it to the floor of either the Senate or House of Representatives before the end of the year, so it can be ratified by lawmakers.

The statements come against the backdrop of U.S. midterms next month, elections that could see the Democrats take back one or both arms of the federal government.

Voting soon would allow the vote to go ahead while Republicans still control both arms of the U.S. Congress and theoretically support the agenda of U.S. President Donald Trump.

While many Democrats have expressed support for free trade with Canada, the temptation to throw a wrench into the works of a policy that Trump is already claiming as a political win may be too great.

"That will be a next-year issue because the process we have to go through doesn't allow that to come up before the end of this year," McConnell told the U.S. news agency.

"There's no question this will be on the top of the agenda," next year, the Kentucky Republican added.

Last week, the Senate's No. 2 Republican, John Cornyn, had said it was "unlikely" the Senate would be able to vote in the final weeks of 2018. Some industry leaders had held out slim hope that a deal could still be approved this year.

The final details of the agreement have yet to be worked out, and trade officials are hoping to have the specifics ironed out by the end of November, which would have made the timeline to ratify a deal in 2018 extremely tight to begin with.

Mexico is on track for its new legislature to ratify the deal in December, and the Canadian government is planning to put the trade pact to a vote next year too.

But any possible delays out of the U.S. are more significant since the U.S. was the part of the triumvirate pushing for a new deal to replace NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) in the first place.

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