NAFTA
North America Free Trade Agreement
Climate change and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) have destabilized the economies and lives of many in Central America and are driving migration.
Regulatory cooperation has provided a forum for multinational business interests to influence government regulators in secretive committees that largely exclude consumer, environmental and other civil society representatives.
Elimination of these tariffs is expected to remove a significant barrier to passing the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
Rather than enhancing public health protection the USMCA places new, extended, and enforceable obligations on public regulators that increase the power of corporate interests during the development of new regulations.
The new NAFTA checks in at nearly 2,000 pages, with corporate giveaways larded throughout that directly impinge on state and federal authority to protect the public.
The trilateral trade agreement is currently lacking the requisite amount of support from Democrats for it to be put to a vote in the US Congress.
Mexico’s top trade negotiator said he hopes congressional Democrats can “appreciate” what Mexico’s reforms mean for labor rights throughout the continent.
The bill enshrines the right of Mexican workers to organize and gives them more control over their contracts.
The USMCA simply follows the failed model of prior free-trade agreements adopted over the past 25 years, which facilitate corporate offshoring to low-wage countries while undermining democratic power.
The head of the largest US labor union said he opposes ratification of the new North American free trade pact, because he doubts Mexico will enforce labor reforms required by the deal.
A government report has concluded that the Trump administration’s revised North American trade agreement would offer modest benefits to the economy, challenging the president’s claims that the accord would make far-reaching changes.
NAFTA 2.0 is not about feeding people or doing right by American farmers or Canadian farmers or Mexican farmers—it is about furthering corporate profit.
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"The data localization and data transfer rules may erode efforts to safeguard privacy and many other provisions represent a lost opportunity to establish higher standards," says expert
The intensifying debate over the renegotiated NAFTA that President Trump is seeking to rebrand as the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) suggests that the president’s trade policy is not so different from those of his predecessors.
More than six months after the United States, Mexico and Canada agreed a new deal, the chances of the countries ratifying the pact in 2019 are receding.
USMCA bears many resemblances to NAFTA, which has been cited as a driver of low-wage corporate outsourcing.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said lawmakers could not take up the replacement for NAFTA unless Mexico passes legislation protecting workers’ rights. She also cited concerns over enforcement provisions, among other issues.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) revealed that new intellectual property provisions in the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement would cost Canadians as much as $169 million more per year for pharmaceutical drugs
The new version of NAFTA forbids the US Congress from curtailing Big Pharma’s patent monopolies on some of the world’s most expensive drugs.
The US company notified its intention to claim compensation of 3,540 million dollars from the Mexican government.
bilaterals.org team, Jan 2021