AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the changes to the auto rules of origin in the new NAFTA -- which include a wage floor for a proportion of the parts workers or assembly workers -- don't impress the United Auto Workers union.
President Donald Trump, speaking at a fracking conference in Pennsylvania, first said that Democrats don't want to put the NAFTA rewrite up for a vote, then said, "But I think they're going to put it up because everybody wants it, and I think ultimately, they're going to do the right thing."
USMCA Working Group Members' Mood After Meeting Diverges; Caucus Is Hearing Biologics Solution Found
Some members of the Democrat working group tasked with getting edits to the new NAFTA said it's going well after the latest meeting, but others emphasized how delicate it is, and how parsing the words is essential to satisfying Democrats' concerns with the deal.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, one of the few Republicans in Washington who has not criticized House Democrats for spending months negotiating for changes to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, told reporters Oct. 22 he recently started to worry about time running out.
China is going to ask the World Trade Organization to authorize retaliatory tariffs on $2.4 billion worth of goods at the WTO's dispute settlement body meeting Oct. 28. If the U.S. disagrees with either the argument that it's not complying with the ruling on countervailing duties, or the amount of retaliation permitted, an arbitrator will decide how much China may retaliate.
House Trade Subcommittee Chairman Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., a member of the working group working to get changes to the new NAFTA to suit Democrats, said "there's been some hiccups" in negotiations with the administration, but a deal is achievable if the administration wants it. "Everybody's trying to figure out how to do it," he said. And, given the amount of staff work, and the pace of meetings -- two this week with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer -- if the Democrats and USTR don't reach agreement "it's not going to be for lack of effort."
A day after President Donald Trump told the president of Italy that "we will look at" whether Italian cheeses should be spared in the tariff list responding to Airbus subsidies, the National Milk Producers Federation reacted with alarm. Trump said that the Italian president told him that the U.S. had been "a little harsh on Italy, and we don't want to be harsh on Italy."
Despite a lack of response to her last two letters, Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind,, has sent another letter to the Commerce Department about what she called "a glaring lack of transparency, fairness, efficiency and consistency" in how the steel and aluminum Section 232 exclusion requests are handled. She noted that this time, she is also sending the letter to the inspector general for the department.
Mexican officials presented a letter from President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to House Ways & Means Chairman Richard Neal Oct. 17 that he is asking the national legislature and state legislatures to increase what they are spending on labor reform in the coming year, including an additional $18.8 million for federal labor courts, $18 million for local conciliation center, $13.5 million for local labor courts and $10 million for training, public education and verification related to the new contracts. The federal government will provide a property worth $23 million to the new labor center, he said,
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said Mexico has made "another significant step forward" by promising to fully fund new labor courts that will be integral to major labor reform in that country. Neal said he, fellow working group member Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., and committee member Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., met with the Mexican president for an hour and 45 minutes during the recess, an hour longer than scheduled.