Ways and Means Democrats Question Enforceability of USMCA Without State-to-State Disputes

The Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee have joined together in a third letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer that lays out specific shortcomings of the new NAFTA in areas they care about. The first two letters addressed labor and the environment. This one focuses on enforceability of all commitments in the deal. According to Democratic House staffers, there will be a letter issued about biologics, as well.

The signers, who range from free-traders to trade skeptics, agreed that the history of enforcing environmental and labor provisions in trade agreements has not been good. There has never been a dispute brought over an environmental standard, they noted, and the one case on labor laws, with Guatemala, was lost.

In the letter released April 25, they wrote, "Our questioning is compounded by the fact that" evasion of state-to-state disputes was not addressed in the rewrite.

"In the first years of NAFTA, three state-to-state disputes were fully litigated between the parties. In the fourth instance, a case that Mexico brought against the United States, the United States managed to prevent the formation of the arbitral panel. That case was never able to proceed further and no other case has ever been resolved through NAFTA’s state-to-state mechanism since," they wrote (see 1807230029).

"With the same procedures in place in the new Agreement, what reason do we have to believe that any disputes over broken promises in the labor, environment, or any other chapter in the agreement will lead to recourse or remedy?" the letter continues. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said repeatedly that without strong enforcement, the pact is useless (see 1902080027 and 1904020047).