Signing of NAFTA 2.0 Does Not End Fight for Progressive Improvements to the Agreement

Statement of Lori Wallach, Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch

The NAFTA 2.0 text that is being signed contains some improvements that progressives have long demanded, some damaging terms we have long opposed and some important unfinished business.

 

If I had to grade the agreement now, I’d give it an incomplete because more work is needed to ensure swift and certain enforcement of the pact’s labor and environmental standards among other essential improvements necessary to stop NAFTA’s ongoing damage to workers and the environment.  

 

President Donald Trump and commentators who don’t know better are likely to place undue significance on this ceremonial event, but the signing is simply the next step in an ongoing process that must produce a final deal that can win majority support in Congress. 

 

As is, the agreement falls short of the changes needed to stop NAFTA’s ongoing job outsourcing, downward pressure on our wages and attacks on environmental safeguards, but there is a path to improving it so a final NAFTA package could win wide support.

 

A new NAFTA can go into effect only if majorities of both the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate approve it next year. Given the results of the midterm elections, only a final deal that can earn Democratic support will get through Congress.

 

If trade officials work with congressional Democrats, unions and others on the improvements needed to stop NAFTA’s ongoing job outsourcing and environmental damage and raise wages, a final deal could achieve broad support next year. Of course, who knows what lunatic things unrelated to trade that Donald Trump might do in the meantime to derail that prospect.

Comments

[Kevin Zeese]

Explain how the fast track process allows for the deal to be amended? Will it be voted down first or do you envision an other path?

[Dave Phillips]

Your biased comments about Trump and what lunatic things he might do have clouded your objectivity before he has started. Might I remind that he WAS ELECTED to office to do what is best for all Americans, not just the few.