As another round of negotiations to review a North American free-trade deal wraps up in Washington this week, lawmakers are growing more vocal in defense of the deal, and anxious about its future.
President Trump has said he’s not sure whether he will renew the six-year-old United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. While many view the president’s threats as a negotiating tactic, they are still causing concern among members of Congress whose districts depend on the agreement.
The United States and Mexico are negotiating in earnest, trading proposals in Washington this week about cars, agriculture and other topics. But Canada did not join the negotiations, raising questions about how any changes would be translated to a three-party agreement.
The Trump administration has at times threatened to jettison Canada entirely. Representative Linda T. Sánchez of California, the top Democrat on a House trade panel, said in an interview that she was a “big proponent” of maintaining the trilateral structure of U. S. M. C. A.
“I’m concerned that the Trump administration is going to abandon that and do these bilateral, like M. O. U. s, which don’t have the full effect of Congress,” she said, comparing Mr. Trump’s trade deals to informal memorandums of understanding. Mr. Trump negotiated U. S. M. C. A.
in his first term to revise the North American Free Trade Agreement, which he called one of the worst deals ever. U. S. M. C. A. wrapped in priorities of both Republicans and Democrats, and its “implementation act” passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support in 2020.
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