House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said that the two sides made progress again on edits to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement when they met Sept. 20. "Once issues are resolved, they're going to come off the table, and we're not going to revisit them as we proceed to the next one," Neal said. He said the Democrat working group he leads will have a written response for U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer next week, when they meet again.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., who leads the working group that aims to win changes to the NAFTA rewrite to make it more palatable to Democrats, said that "it's time to pick up the intensity of the negotiations" with the administration. "I would prefer now that the pace pick up," he said in an interview on Sept. 19, the day before the working group was to meet with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer for the first time since they received a counterproposal from him.
House Democrat working group members -- those responsible for convincing the administration to edit the new NAFTA to suit Democrats -- are encouraged and said that there is a deal to be had, if the administration continues to compromise, multiple members said in Sept. 18 interviews. Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., told International Trade Today Sept. 18: "We were pleased to get an answer ... it's not there [yet], but it's encouraging. We're going to meet tomorrow, and next week, and we'll just keep plugging away, narrowing the gaps, and if people want a deal, we can make one."
Former Rep. Phil English, R-Pa., now co-chairman of Arent Fox's lobbying team, says the incentives are in the wrong place for House Democrats to ratify the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. English was featured on an Arent Fox Sept. 16 webinar on "working through the chaos" along with Grant Aldonas, a former top trade lawyer on the Senate Finance Committee, former Sen. Byron Dorgan and two trade lawyers. English said if the economy worsens, it hurts Trump, not House Democrats, and that the NAFTA rewrite faces "a great deal of opposition" from elements of the Democratic coalition. He said it may never get ratified if it doesn't get done in the next two months.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue said he doesn't believe that the Trump administration will declare victory if Chinese buyers return to buying pork, soybeans and corn. "I don't think it will be an agreement of any type until it's a matter of substance," he said.
The European Union said the level of U.S. retaliation authorized by the World Trade Organization for the EU's subsidies to Airbus is likely to be released the week of Sept. 30, and that they regret that the 19-year Airbus-Boeing dispute is coming to tariffs.
Although the Republican House members cheering for passage of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement outnumbered Democrats more than 3-to-1, both Republicans and Democrats who spoke at the Farmers for Free Trade Rally Sept. 12 said ratification is within reach. Former House Ways and Means Committee chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said, "I feel like we have moved to the 20-yard line." Rep. Henry Cuellar, a fellow Texan who is a Democrat, agreed. "We will get this done," he predicted. "We are very close."
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer sent a written counter-proposal to the House working group the afternoon of Sept. 11, a House Ways & Means spokeswoman said. She declined to say how long and extensive it was.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told reporters that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer expects to finish negotiations with the House Democrats' working group on the NAFTA rewrite in the next 20 days. Grassley, speaking Sept. 10, said he spoke with Lighthizer Sept. 6. "I hope that's not too optimistic, but he's doing it, and so I can accept his word on it, I guess," Grassley said.
The U.S. trade representative and India's Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal have been talking on the phone, with the goal of trading a return to the Generalized System of Preferences benefits program for better agricultural access, according to two sources following the trade talks. The original industry complaints about market access filed with USTR, requesting that India be expelled from GSP privileges were from the medical device industry and from the dairy industry. A lawyer following the trade talks said that "there's talk -- and this is still a very contentious issue" -- that the pricing controls on medical devices, such as stents, would be changed in India.