NAFTA TO Finally See The Light Of Day

The United States and Canada have given more teeth to their free trade agreement, with Mexico also added into the new USMCA deal. Giving a new look to the quarter of a century old trade pact, the new agreement aims to improve enforcement of worker rights and hold down prices for biologic drugs by eliminating a patent provision.

Speaking on the effectiveness of the new agreement replacing the NAFTA, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that the new one is good news for the farmers.

Post the formal signing in Mexico City, the agreement has finally launched what may be the final approval effort for U.S. President Donald Trump’s three-year quest to revamp the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a deal he has blamed for the loss of millions of U.S. manufacturing jobs.

Present at the occasion were important dignitaries including Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and U.S. White House adviser Jared Kushner.

The signing of the deal has come with some friction over how intrusive would be foreign enforcement of labour rules in Mexico, party division looking at a vote on the agreement after the impeachment trial and the likes.

Though really signed a year ago, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) would have replaced NAFTA sooner. But Democrats controlling the U.S. House of Representatives insisted on major changes to labor and environmental enforcement before bringing it to a vote. The process has finally come through as all three country representatives have agreed and signed on the ratified deal, which will now go in for vote, something the political analysts feel with only come through in 2020, owing to Congressional holidays falling to Christmas break.