House Speaker Expresses Optimism About Modifying New NAFTA for Ratification
Republican senators have been saying they don't know how the new NAFTA can be approved (see 1901310038) and the House Trade Subcommittee chairman tweeted that there's a lot of work needed before his committee would vote for it or it could pass the house. One observer said it would be a "lovely miracle" if the deal were ratified this year (see 1901290028).
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But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, whose decisions matter most for the trade deal's passage, said at a press conference that she's optimistic about the ability to resolve Democrats' concerns about the new NAFTA. "The concerns center around workers’ rights, center around the environment, center around prescription drug prices. Those are some of the subjects, but the overarching issue is enforcement. You can have the best language on any subject in a bill, but if you don’t have the enforcement provisions very strongly spelled out, not as a sidebar, not as a side letter, but central to the treaty, then there’s a problem," Pelosi said Feb. 7, according to a transcript of her weekly press conference.
She said that Democrats have had good rapport with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and she expects he'll meet more with the House Ways and Means Committee so members can tell him what they'd like to see in the implementing legislation. "I have always thought that this was probably one of the easier trade agreements to come to agreement on, but, so far, we’re not there yet," she said.
Pelosi also answered a question about a House bill that would give Congress the ability to roll back Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum and prevent future 232 tariffs (see 1902010028). She said she hasn't seen the bill yet, adding, according to the transcript, "but I do support reclaiming some of Congress’s -- it is Congress’s prerogative. We have given some of that authority to the President, and there is legislation here that I am familiar with that would give him even more authority, and I don’t support that." She was referring to the U.S. Reciprocal Trade Act, a bill the president pitched in his State of the Union address. That bill has only Republican sponsors (see 1901240017).