The United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact is finding widespread favor now that Democrats and the White House have reached a bipartisan agreement to move the document forward.
Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue, Senator Jerry Moran, Congressman Roger Marshall and over 1,000 American food and agriculture-based associations have voiced their support for the new trade agreement this year.
USMCA, as it’s called, will replace the North American Free trade Agreement that was enacted under the Clinton administration, and although much of the document is either the same or similar, USMCA has several key differences from the original trade agreement:
*For auto manufacturing, 75 percent of a vehicle’s parts must be made in one of the three countries in the agreement, up from 62.5 percent. More vehicle parts must be made by workers making at least $16 an hour.
*Democrats say USMCA strengthens labor laws to level the playing field between the US and Mexico, where wages are lower.
*There will be more access to Canadian markets for dairy, poultry and eggs, and more Canadian products like dairy, peanuts and sugar will come to the US.
*USMCA adds technology pieces that were not part of NAFTA, including prohibitions on Canada and Mexico from forcing US companies to store data on in-country servers. Separately, Congress also keeps control over US-made biologic drugs.
The US Department of Agriculture says Canada and Mexico are the United States’ two largest export markets with nearly $40 billion of exports going to those two countries last year. USDA says those exports helped to support over 325,000 American jobs.
