On Tuesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), announced that the Democrats finally decided to put America first and acquiesced to President Trump’s US Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) plan to replace NAFTA, a trade deal that Trump negotiated and lobbied Congress for approval that Democrats held up.
If Democrats are now on track to support USMCA, it makes me worry about what they did to ruin it.
“There is no question, of course, that this trade agreement is much better than NAFTA,” Pelosi said at a press conference announcing her Party’s support of the agreement.
“It is infinitely better than what was originally proposed by the administration,” said Pelosi.
She just had to get a dig in on Trump, even though the entire idea was his from the start.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA), said Democrats are going into the “final stages of text sharing” with other lawmakers “before there is any expedited period of bringing it to the floor.” No indication was given for when the House would vote on the deal.
Democrats said they got onboard when labor law enforcement, environmental standards, and prescription drugs provisions were added in the mix.
The deal must now be ratified by all three countries. A House vote is finally schedule for next week.
“Every once in a great while you get to participate in an ‘it will never happen moment,’” said Chairman Neal. “We are witnessing that today.”
I haven’t been able to read the provision changes yet, but knowing the Democrats I can almost guarantee that their changes will give the federal government full authority to control the prices of medicine in public and private markets, meaning Medicare and beyond. Democrats are all about government control, because they think the government knows what’s best for you more than you do.
“This is a transformative agreement,” Neal said. “Our constant emphasis was on enforceability, enforceability, and enforceability, we fixed that.”
Meaning, government control, government control, government control.
From the Washington Examiner:
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka announced early Tuesday that the nation’s largest labor federation had endorsed USMCA, removing the last major barrier to passage. House Democrats had previously feared union backlash if they backed the deal. Trumka said the long negotiations between House Democrats and the Trump administration had created “enforceable labor standards — including a process that allows for the inspections of factories and facilities,” which had been the labor movement’s primary goal for the deal.
The trade deal would replace the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement, essentially updating the old agreement. Replacing NAFTA is a victory for Trump, who has, for years, argued the old agreement was a terrible deal for the United States.
The new version requires that 75% of an automobile’s parts must be made in North America to be duty-free, up from 62.5%. In addition, the deal says that at least 40 to 45% of a car’s components must be made by factory workers earning at least $16 an hour or its equivalent. The measures are meant to limit Mexico’s competitive advantage on labor costs.
Whenever union bosses are in support of any government program it usually means it’s great for the unions and a horrible deal for the other 82 percent of American worker.
USMCA opens up to Canadian dairy markets for US farmers as well as other provisions.
Pelosi’s announcement came several months after Democrats stalled the White House by demanding excessive modifications to the deal, claiming it didn’t have an enforcement arm, especially for those union bosses.
Democrats complained about enforcement even though Mexico passed new labor laws just to comply with the USMCA deal. The Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (that was exhausting) vowed to enforce the provisions. The labor unions, er, I mean, the Democrats complained that enforcement in the deal wasn’t strong enough.
Trump hoped to get the deal done over the summer, because he didn’t want it to go into 2020, an election year, fearing it would never get done.
After the 2020 elections, when Trump wins in a landslide and the Republicans take control of both houses of Congress, they can reopen negotiations to remove the damage added by Democrats to keep their union friends happy.
