[CTC] House working group has yet to receive formal NAFTA counterproposals from USTR

[Arthur Stamoulis]

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House working group has yet to receive formal USMCA counterproposals from USTR
By Isabelle Hoagland and Hannah Monicker, Inside U.S. Trade
09/04/2019

As Congress prepares to return to work next week following a lengthy recess, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has yet to submit formal, comprehensive counterproposals to the House Democrats’ U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement working group, according to a House Ways & Means Committee spokeswoman.
 
One House Democrat who backs the deal expressed frustration on Wednesday about a lack of progress in the talks.
 
Trump administration officials and other advocates have been attempting to drum up support for a USMCA vote this fall, embarking on district-level lobbying efforts throughout the recess, which is set to conclude on Sept. 8. But significant progress between USTR and the working group helmed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) remains to be seen, according to Rep. Ron Kind (D-WI), a member of the House Ways & Means trade subcommittee.
 
USTR did not respond to a request for comment on the status of the negotiations, or whether the agency had provided Capitol Hill with formal proposals in four key areas: labor, enforcement, environment and biologics.
 
The working group gave USTR detailed text on each of those areas in early August, a move that was previewed in an eight-page status report to the speaker.
 
Democrats are growing increasingly frustrated with USTR’s lack of substantive counterproposals, Kind told reporters on Wednesday.
 
“Those conversations are still ongoing, but we’re at the point now where we need the trade representative’s office to start bringing back some text to us and how they will fix some of the shortcomings that exist with USMCA,” he said, adding that he was disappointed by a lack of progress over the August recess.
 
While Kind is not a member of the formal USMCA working group, he said he and others had been meeting regularly with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, but had yet to receive concrete text.
 
“We’ve been meeting with Ambassador Lighthizer since early this year, since the agreement was signed, and raising these same issues with him,” he said. “And his response was always, ‘Hey, I agree with you. I want to be able to work and fix this.’ And yet, for some reason, there’s been a reluctance on sharing paper, putting words down.”
 
Pelosi and other House Democratic leaders briefed the full caucus on Tuesday about USMCA, according to Kind. She also spoke on Tuesday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about next steps.
 
Kind said he expected to return from recess and see positive momentum between the two sides.
 
“I think we’re at the point now where he’s heard enough of it, where he knows where the issues are and where he knows where the concerns lie,” he said of Lighthizer. “I hate to come back in September and fall into the same rut of having these feel-good meetings, but with no substantive exchange taking place.”
 
Kind added that he would be “pressing my own leadership” to develop more specific language “that will satisfy the Democratic side” and provide additional guidance to Lighthizer.
 
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) this week said the administration’s efforts to gain House Democrats’ support for the deal likely would “seep” into 2020. DeLauro is a co-chair of the working group’s enforcement task force.
 
Kind, however, said he remained hopeful USMCA could be put to a vote “early this fall.” For that to happen, he added, “there has to be a lot of quick action here in early September with papers being exchanged between us and USTR in order to narrow the issues and focus on the language of what needs to be fixed.”
 
Asked whether the working group had any sense of timing for a USMCA vote, the Ways & Means Committee spokeswoman said she did not have an update.


Arthur Stamoulis
Citizens Trade Campaign
(202) 494-8826




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