[CTC] New NAFTA won't mean 'dramatic differences' for many U.S. companies, Yerxa says

[Arthur Stamoulis]

POLITICO PRO
New NAFTA won't mean 'dramatic differences' for many U.S. companies, Yerxa says

By Sabrina Rodriguez 
03/22/2019 01:29 PM EDT

Many U.S. companies will support ratification of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement to preserve free trade in North America, but not because they necessarily think it's better than the original NAFTA, National Foreign Trade Council President Rufus Yerxa said Friday.

"For a lot of them, it's not a question of making things better; it's a question of maintaining the status quo," Yerxa said during a roundtable with reporters.

He said 90 percent or more of NFTC's board members, which include companies like Walmart, Visa and Ford, also view USMCA as an agreement that mainly preserves existing trade realities in the North American market.

"It's not going to result in dramatic differences," he said, referring to the prevailing opinion among NFTC's 50-plus board members.

The Trump administration has begun to step up its efforts to get lawmakers to support the replacement deal for NAFTA, planning a White House meeting on Tuesday with Republicans leading the whipping effort on Capitol Hill. But a number of hurdles remain before Congress can vote on the new agreement, and House Democrats want changes to be made to labor provisions and other parts of the deal.

Opinions about USMCA vary among companies from industry to industry, Yerxa said. The auto industry, for example, is concerned USMCA's rules of origin for automobiles and auto parts are "actually going to impact their competitiveness negatively," he said.

Companies in the e-commerce sector view the deal as a positive development, he said.

Yerxa said the biggest concern he's heard from NFTC board members centers on the Trump administration's continued national security tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Mexico and Canada.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said last week that the administration is working to wrap up tariff relief talks with Mexico and Canada, which may have bearing on the timing of when lawmakers in those countries consider ratification. He acknowledged that import quotas could be the answer to the tariffs.

"There's a strong view that replacing them with some kind of quota arrangement — either unilaterally or negotiated — would be a bad outcome," Yerxa said.

In recent weeks, multiple business coalitions representing U.S. farmers, manufacturers and other industries have been launched to push for congressional approval of USMCA. Many of the same organizations involved in those efforts, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Farm Bureau Federation, continue to urge the administration to drop its tariffs on steel and aluminum from Mexico and Canada.

 

Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826




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