Congressional Research Service Says Trump Could Have Trouble Exiting NAFTA Without Congress

The Congressional Research Service evaluated whether President Donald Trump can unilaterally withdraw from NAFTA, as he has threatened to do to force a vote on its replacement. Their assessment -- a 19-page report -- boils down to probably not. Mexico and Canada could not challenge such a move, the researchers said, because of the text's provisions about withdrawal. But whether U.S. law would allow it is ambiguous, they said, and any such proclamation would end up in court.

"It does not appear that any statute expressly affords the President with the authority to terminate NAFTA on his own. It is unclear whether Congress’s enactment of an extensive legal framework providing for legislative consideration, approval, and implementation of trade agreements indicates that Congress did not intend to authorize the President implicitly to withdraw from NAFTA without further congressional action," the report said. There could be a problem of standing, they wrote, but Congress might be more likely to win the argument that the president cannot withdraw if it passed a resolution barring such a move with a veto-proof majority.

Even if a court didn't block the president's move, the NAFTA Implementation Act would likely remain in effect after termination of U.S. obligations under NAFTA, the report said, because of Supreme Court precedent that laws can only be revoked by another vote of Congress. That law does provide for terminating some provisions of the treaty if Canada or Mexico quits the agreement, but, the report noted, "it is unclear what language in either of these provisions would afford the President the authority to terminate the agreement without such conduct by Canada or Mexico."