USMCA

U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue said that while there are already enough Democrats who want to vote for a new NAFTA to make a majority with Republicans, he understands that the administration will have to make adjustments on "two or three little issues" to get House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to bring it to a vote, and he said the Chamber "absolutely supports" those changes.

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."

The trade staff of the House Ways and Means Committee told Democrats who are anxious for a ratification vote on the new NAFTA that the rewrite "will be ready for a vote as soon as it is ready; no sooner, and also no later," in a memo that was structured as an imagined dialogue between a member who wants a vote and the committee chairman, who has a big say on when that vote happens.

International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Aug. 19-23 in case they were missed.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer expects Canada's Parliament to continue progress on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement in the fall following October elections, he said in recently posted written responses to House Ways and Means Committee members following a June 19 hearing (see 1906190062). "The Trudeau government has begun necessary steps to ratify the USMCA in its Parliament and has stated that it plans to move forward on implementation in tandem with the United States," he said. "The Canadian Parliament has adjourned for the summer and is not expected to return before federal elections are held on October 21, 2019. We anticipate that Canada will take up the legislation once a new government is seated later this fall, and we are confident that the Parliament will vote in favor of the Agreement."

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is reviewing the Section 321 provisions that allow for duty exemptions for low-value goods in light of "efforts to circumvent the requirements of the de minimis provisions in U.S. law," USTR Robert Lighthizer told lawmakers in recently released written responses to House Ways and Means Committee members following a June 19 hearing (see 1906190035). Asked about "the operation and impact of U.S. de minimis policy" by Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., Lighthizer said he's "particularly concerned" about those efforts to improperly use the exemption.

International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for July 29 - Aug. 2 in case they were missed.

Although 10 of the 27 members of the Senate Finance Committee asked U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to leave de minimis where it is -- including the chairman and ranking member -- the USTR has remained non-committal on whether the implementing bill will change U.S. law for the NAFTA region. As Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., put it in a brief hallway interview at the Capitol before the Senate recessed on Aug. 2, "He hasn’t said one way or the other on that."

A new provision in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement’s rules of origin for automobiles should prevent automobile manufacturers from having to segregate parts on the production line and also make origin calculations less burdensome, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told the Senate Finance Committee in one of a series of written answers to questions the committee posed to him at a June 18 hearing. Under the renegotiated NAFTA, called USMCA, certain “core parts” listed in Column 1 of Table A.2 must be originating for a vehicle to be originating, but Article 3.9 permits producers to bundle the parts under Column 1 together as a “super core” part when calculating the value of non-originating material (VNM) for origin purposes. “Many vehicle producers do not segregate core parts when producing vehicles, but use or bundle them within different modules along the production line,” USTR said. “The ‘super core’ calculation allows such producers to meet the core parts requirement without having to segregate each of the parts and do separate, burdensome calculations. The super core calculation incentivizes U.S. producers to use more originating content and maintains their competitiveness without accruing any possible efficiency losses from having to segregate core parts,” the agency said.

Although the labor witness at the Senate Finance Committee hearing on the new NAFTA said labor leaders "remain optimistic about the ability to resolve the issues" with the rewrite, Michael Wessel also said they "will not hesitate to oppose" ratification if they are not satisfied. Wessel, who is the staff chairman to the Labor Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations and Trade Policy, said the current rewrite, known as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, "is not good enough."