[CTC] Mexico objects to labor enforcement provision in North American trade deal

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Mexico objects to labor enforcement provision in North American trade deal
Sharay Angulo

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico's deputy foreign minister, Jesus Seade, said
on Saturday he sent a letter to the top U.S. trade official expressing
surprise and concern over a labor enforcement provision proposed by a U.S.
congressional committee in the new North American trade deal.

Top officials from Canada, Mexico and the United States on Tuesday signed a
fresh overhaul of a quarter-century-old deal, aiming to improve enforcement
of worker rights and hold down prices for biologic drugs by eliminating a
patent provision.

How labor disputes are handled in the new United States-Mexico-Canada
Agreement (USMCA) trade deal was one of the last sticking points in the
negotiations between the three countries to overhaul the agreement.

Intense negotiations over the past week among U.S. Democrats, the
administration of Republican U.S. President Donald Trump, and Mexico
produced more stringent rules on labor rights aimed at reducing Mexico's
low-wage advantage.

However, an annex for the implementation of the treaty that was presented
on Friday in the U.S. House of Representatives proposes the designation of
up to five U.S. experts who would monitor compliance with local labor
reform in Mexico.

"This provision, the result of political decisions by Congress and the
Administration in the United States, was not, for obvious reasons,
consulted with Mexico," Seade wrote in the letter. "And, of course, we
disagree."

USMCA was signed more than a year ago to replace the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA), but Democrats controlling the U.S. House of
Representatives insisted on major changes to labor and environmental
enforcement before voting.

The letter, released on Saturday, is dated Friday and addressed to U.S.
Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. Seade said he would travel to
Washington on Sunday to raise the issues directly with Lighthizer and
lawmakers.

"Unlike the rest of the provisions that are clearly within the internal
scope of the United States, the provision referred to does have effects
with respect to our country and therefore, should have been consulted,"
Seade wrote.

Both Canada and the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee said the deal
included a mechanism for verification of compliance with union rights at
the factory level in Mexico by independent labor experts.

Some Mexican business groups bemoaned a lack of clarity and conflicting
information on how the rules would actually be enforced under the deal, the
first text of which became public only on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Sharay Angulo in Mexico City; Writing by Stefanie
Eschenbacher; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-usmca-idUSKBN1YI0KZ
Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.citizenstrade.org/pipermail/ctcfield-citizenstrade.org/attachments/20191215/c3e7262b/attachment.html>