NAFTA 2.0 Democratic Advocate Tells Mexico to Fix Its Labor Budget
Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, wants to ratify NAFTA 2.0, and believes the House will vote to do so in November or December. But in a speech Sept. 26 at the American Security Project, he told Mexican diplomats in the audience that they need to add more money to their labor budget.
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He told them that in the House Democratic caucus meeting (see 1909250048), the cuts to the labor department's budget in Mexico was the first thing the NAFTA rewrite working group brought up. "I understand what the 30 percent cut was, I understand exactly what it is, but if we have to explain that it's not a cut, it's a losing proposition," he said. "There's a lot of members that sometimes look for something to say, 'I'm against it.' We cannot give some of my Democratic members an excuse to vote against it. We're at a very delicate time."
Cuellar is a long-time advocate for trade, as he represents the Port of Laredo, which for a few months this year was the busiest port in America as imports from China fell at the Port of Los Angeles. He joked about how the AFL-CIO advertised against him because of the Central America Free Trade Agreement vote he took his first term. "Cuellar is bad. He supports trade," he said the commercials said, and he said his tally that election was 90 percent.
Cuellar acknowledged that "the 'i' word" complicates the path to ratification, but still feels confident that impeachment investigations can proceed on one track while fixes to NAFTA 2.0 to satisfy Democratic demands continue on another. He noted that a reauthorization of the North American Development Bank proceeded out of committee recently, and he hopes that an infusion of capital to that organization can be part of the implementing bill for the NAFTA rewrite. The NAD Bank underwrites a lot of the Mexican environmental projects that help fight water pollution that affects both countries, he said.
After Cuellar spoke, a panel talked about the trade deal's prospects. Ed Gerwin, a trade lawyer and founder of Trade Guru, said he felt unqualified to do so, since Cuellar, as a deputy whip in the House, is paid to count votes. But he said that "in a perverse kind of way, the impeachment investigation increases the likelihood they're going to want to move quickly." He noted that swing district Democrats who only recently endorsed starting impeachment proceedings are from places that want the new NAFTA ratified. "Given how strategic Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi is," he said, he believes she will do her best to segregate impeachment from regular business.
Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, said that no matter which way the Canadian election goes, Canada is going to have no choice but to ratify NAFTA 2.0, known as the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Gerwin expressed hope that once Congress has cleared the deck of this trade debate, it can turn to reforming Section 232. He says he tells Republicans: "You want to do this, too, because President Bernie Sanders or President Elizabeth Warren could do the same things" that Trump has done with tariffs.