[CTC] Why isn't Trump serious about fixing NAFTA?

Thu Oct 24 13:37:32 PDT 2019

*Why isn't Trump serious about fixing NAFTA?*

By Lori Wallach, Sister Simone Campbell

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/467307-why-isnt-trump-serious-about-fixing-nafta

10/24/2019

Fixing the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is one of few goals
Donald Trump shares with congressional Democrats. But Trump’s
if-you-investigate-I-won’t-legislate tantrum threatens enactment of a
revised NAFTA.

The two of us, a Catholic Sister and a consumer advocate both committed to
social justice, have long advocated for NAFTA’s replacement given the pact’s
ongoing damage
<http://infographic.replacenafta.org/nafta-at-25-promises-vs-reality/>
throughout
North America.

But the NAFTA 2.0 deal President Trump
<https://thehill.com/people/donald-trump> signed last year wouldn’t raise
wages in Mexico or stop race-to-the-bottom U.S. job outsourcing
<https://ustr.gov/sites/default/files/files/agreements/FTA/AdvisoryCommitteeReports/Labor%20Advisory%20Committee%20on%20Trade%20Negotiations%20and%20Trade%20Policy%20%28LAC%29.pdf>.
And Trump added new monopoly rights for pharmaceutical corporations to
NAFTA that would lock in high drug prices here and raise them in Mexico
<https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/english/usmca-will-increase-the-medicine-prices-in-mexico>
 and Canada
<http://behindthenumbers.ca/2019/04/11/usmca-and-drug-costs-time-to-stand-up-to-big-pharma/>
.

Immediately after a revised deal was announced, congressional Democrats began
urging <https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/2719-2> the administration to
eliminate the Pharma giveaways
<https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/NAFTA-Meds-Fact-Sheet-Final.pdf>
and
to strengthen the pact’s labor and environmental provisions
<https://aflcio.org/sites/default/files/2018-09/LAC%20Report%20NAFTA%20Final%20Final%20PDF.pdf>
and
their enforcement. The latter is necessary for a new pact to counteract
NAFTA’s outsourcing of jobs and pollution. They also called on Mexico to
implement labor reforms so a new deal could actually deliver improvements
for workers there and here.

But for nine months, the administration refused to change a single word of
what Trump rebranded the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). Now,
even as administration
officials have begun to work with congressional Democrats
<https://waysandmeans.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/neal-statement-trade-working-group-progress-and-report-speaker-pelosi>
on
necessary changes, Trump could sink the process.

The president alternatively threatens that he cannot work with Democrats if
they investigate him
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-80/>
and
tries to blame
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-nafta/trump-says-impeachment-inquiry-could-derail-trade-deal-mexico-markets-slump-idUSKBN1WA2C7>
Democrats
for delays caused by the administration not making the changes needed to
garner a congressional majority.

Eager to shift attention from Trump’s calls for foreign interference in our
elections, GOP congressional leaders have joined in. Senate Majority
Leader Mitch
McConnell <https://thehill.com/people/mitch-mcconnell> (R-Ky.) even claimed
<https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/2019/09/26/senate-section/article/S5713-7>
Democrats
are too busy investigating Trump to pass USMCA. That’s rich coming from
someone who has buried reams of legislation that the House passed this year.

Despite these histrionics, Democrats are continuing to work with the
administration to fix NAFTA, which says a lot about their zeal to stop
NAFTA’s considerable damage.

The U.S. Department of Labor has certified just under 1 million U.S. jobs
as lost to NAFTA
<https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/nafta_factsheet_deficit_jobs_wages_feb_2018_final.pdf>,
with more jobs outsourced to Mexico weekly. Unless the NAFTA 2.0 labor and
environmental standards and their enforcement are significantly
strengthened, the race to the bottom will only continue.

Why? The absence of independent labor unions in Mexico means real wages
there are now lower
<https://data.oecd.org/natincome/net-national-income.htm> than before
NAFTA. Mexican manufacturing wages are 40 percent lower than in China
<https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/Mexico-Manufacturing-Wages-Less-Than-China.pdf>
.

The workers in the Chevy Blazer plant that GM chose to locate in Mexico
will earn less per day than their U.S. counterparts made per hour a decade
ago and not enough to cover basic needs
<https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/NAFTA-Factsheet_Mexico-Legacy_Jan-2019.pdf>.
That is not only deeply unfair to both U.S. and Mexican workers, it is
immoral.

Meanwhile, the new pharma perks make NAFTA 2.0 worse than the original. The
pact requires signatory countries to provide extended monopoly rights
<https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/nafta-2.0-pharmaceutical-related-patent-provisions.pdf>
that
block the generic competition needed to reduce drug prices. This includes
extensions of drug patent monopolies beyond 20 years, guaranteed additional
exclusive marketing rights for biologic drugs
<https://www.apnews.com/52fd2fe15baf481eac7cfde5d9dbf85d>, and more.

If these terms become law, they would lock in the policies that make our
medicines the most expensive in the world while exporting our bad policies
to Mexico
<https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/english/usmca-will-increase-the-medicine-prices-in-mexico>
 and Canada
<http://behindthenumbers.ca/2019/04/11/usmca-and-drug-costs-time-to-stand-up-to-big-pharma/>.
And yes, this would undermine Trump’s own plan
<https://www.citizen.org/news/canadian-imports-are-not-an-adequate-solution-to-high-u-s-medicine-prices/>
to
import cheaper medicines from Canada.

It’s not surprising that Big Pharma is bankrolling the corporate campaign
to pass USMCA
<http://infographic.replacenafta.org/pro-usmca-coalition-corporations-are-responsible-for-more-than-500000-trade-related-layoffs/>
as-is.
But, a House Democratic majority that prioritizes lowering Americans’
prescription drug costs will not enact a trade deal that handcuffs them
<https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/lighthizermeds.pdf> from
accomplishing that mission.

Trump must decide if he will stick with Big Pharma and corporations that
have outsourced hundreds of thousands of U.S. jobs under NAFTA
<http://infographic.replacenafta.org/pro-usmca-coalition-corporations-are-responsible-for-more-than-500000-trade-related-layoffs/>.
That’s who supports USMCA <https://passusmca.org/>.

Not a single union
<https://aflcio.org/aboutleadershipstatements/without-fixes-we-must-oppose-new-nafta>
or
consumer group does. But unlike past trade deals, neither the unions nor
our groups have pushed to scrap the deal announced last year.

That is because in the original renegotiations
<http://infographic.replacenafta.org/>, U.S. Trade Representative Robert
Lighthizer <https://thehill.com/people/robert-bob-lighthizer> made some
important improvements, such as largely eliminating NAFTA’s Investor-State
Dispute settlement system under which corporations have been paid almost
$400 million after attacks on environmental and health laws
<https://www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/NAFTA-Factsheet_ISDS_Jan-2019.pdf>.
That made it worth fighting to get the rest of the deal right.

Now it’s on Trump to decide if he can work with Congress to get something
done while he is being investigated and actually fix NAFTA.

*Sister Simone Campbell
<https://networklobby.org/staff/simonecampbellsss/> is the Executive
Director of NETWORK. Lori Wallach
<https://www.citizen.org/article/lori-wallach-director-public-citizens-global-trade-watch/>
is
the Director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch.*

Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826
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