NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS | October 5, 2018 | PAGE 13
NATIONAL
Defying predictions, Trump announces new U.S.-Canada-Mexico treaty
By Celeste Drake
AFL-CIO Trade Policy Specialist
While there are too many details
that still need to be worked out
before working people make a
final judgment on a deal, here is
a brief analysis on the trade deal
text released late Sept. 30 (we’ll
call it “NAFTA 2018” for clar-
ity). Working families want the
United States, Canada and Mex-
ico to go back to the table and
finish a deal that creates good,
high-wage jobs, protects our en-
vironment and safeguards our
democracy.
The original NAFTA favors
outsourcers over workers, creat-
ing special privileges for global
companies at the cost of good
jobs, high wages and our
democracy. Whether it is in
Eddy Morales
for Gresham City Council
Endorsed by:
NW Oregon Labor Council
IBEW Local 48
Oregon AFSCME Council 75
Carpenters Local 1503
UFCW Local 555
AFSCME Local 88
Joint Council of Teamsters No. 37
Working Families Party
Reynolds Education Association
When workers win,
we ALL win!
need of renegotiation isn’t in
doubt. It’s required for the good
of working families across
North America.
Unfortunately, we have been
presented with an unfinished
text to review. In some places,
the text is still in draft form, in
other places, important terms re-
main bracketed (unresolved)
and in some cases, including
with respect to the government
procurement schedules, there is
no text to review.
The bottom line is that we
simply do not have enough in-
formation at this time to know
whether NAFTA 2018 is in the
economic interests of the United
States. Here’s what it does have:
■ The good: Improved labor rules,
including detailed obligations to eradicate
Mexico’s protection contracts, in the main
body of the text; a meaningful reduction
(but not an elimination) of unjustifiable
special rights for foreign investors; and
generally stronger content rules to prevent
non-NAFTA countries from “free riding” on
NAFTA tariff reductions.
■ The bad: NAFTA 2018 moves backward
from the original NAFTA in many areas
important to working families, including
with respect to “good regulatory practices”
(code for using this trade agreement to
attack important consumer, health, safety
and environmental protections), financial
services (providing new tools for Wall
Street to attack efforts to rein in its
continuing abuses), affordable medicines
(extending monopolies for brand-name
pharmaceuticals at the expense of
affordability), and privacy of personal
data.
■ The unknown: The many unanswered
questions include whether, when and
how Mexico will enact and implement
labor law reform; whether, when and how
labor monitoring and enforcement tools
will be included in the agreement and any
associated legislation; what the final auto
rule of origin looks like; and whether Buy
American will be strengthened or
weakened.
Canada is the United States’
closest trading partner. Many of
the AFL-CIO’s member unions
are “international unions,”
meaning they have Canadian
members, just as U.S. families,
businesses and industrial pro-
duction span the U.S.-Canadian
border.
The effect of NAFTA 2018
on manufacturing is unknown at
this time, because of the lack of
specific text on a number of im-
portant issues, the lack of effec-
tive currency disciplines, the un-
certainty about what steps
Mexico will take to implement
its constitutional and NAFTA
2018 commitments to promote
labor rights, and what imple-
menting, monitoring and en-
forcement infrastructure and re-
sources will be provided.
Additional information is
needed vis-à-vis rules of origin
provisions before we can per-
form a more robust evaluation.
There’s more:
■ On labor, despite progress, more
work remains to be done. Mexico
must follow through on its labor law
reforms. In addition, we will continue to
engage with the administration and
Congress on implementing, monitoring
and enforcement measures to buttress the
provisions in the agreement and to secure
sufficient mandatory funding to provide
technical assistance, where needed, and
capacity building to help new unions form
and budding unions to stand up.
■ NAFTA 2018 is poised to drive up
the price of medicines for working
families and retirees. Rather than
learning from the mistakes of prior trade
rules that have increased the price of
medicines in developing countries and
that made the Trans-Pacific Partnership so
deeply unpopular, NAFTA 2018
incorporates nearly wholesale the wish list
of big pharmaceutical companies, with
respect to intellectual property rights and
drug pricing provisions. Measured against
the status quo, public health is likely to be
harmed, the prices on drugs and medical
devices are likely to increase and life-
saving medicines could be increasingly
out of the reach of those most in need.
The currency provision is inadequate.
Only the reporting requirements are
enforceable—not any obligation to
refrain from competitive devaluation.
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