Grassley Says Democrats Will Be Harmed Politically if They Defeat NAFTA 2.0

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told reporters that if President Donald Trump were to hike tariffs in violation of what was negotiated in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, as he threatened to do, it could blow up the treaty. "More tariffs would create more problems," Grassley said April 10, and he noted the steel and aluminum tariffs are already a major obstacle. "The Congress of the United States won’t bring up that agreement until the tariffs are off," he said.

When asked if the House Ways and Means Committee chairman's letter on USMCA (see 1904090066) made him think a vote won't happen before August, Grassley said, "I’m going to give you a political answer. There might be some things in there that I don’t like. But overall, this is much better than the old NAFTA and particularly much better from things like data trade and sanitary/phytosanitary things that are in there."

House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., complained about labor, environment, enforcement and biologics provisions in his letter. Democrats believe the deal has to be reopened to solve some or all of these problems, but Grassley strongly disagrees. He said, "So there might be something that’s not in there that I like, but you gotta go with what you got. So I think from a political standpoint, the Democrats ought to get this through, or else it’s going to be a tremendous defeat for them! Because a lot of this was negotiated by Lighthizer to satisfy Democrats even more than Republicans. Now, thank God, we don’t have a fall-off of Republicans because that was his approach. And I doubt if when he started, he knew he was going to have a Democratic House, but it surely worked out to the favor of getting an agreement through.

"[House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi has to move on this, or they’re going to look very, very bad if this thing goes down the drain. So you gotta get off the perfect. There isn’t such a thing as a perfect trade agreement." Pelosi's office didn't comment.

Grassley also addressed the Section 232 auto report, that he said he still hasn't seen. "I’m not sure that 232 study on autos by the Commerce Department was done in a very professional and intellectually honest ... well, I shouldn’t say intellectually honest, but in a professional way. It may have some shortcomings, and that’s why we haven’t seen it. It ought to be out there, we spent a lot of money on this study … but if you put it out, it probably weakens the president’s political position."