New NAFTA Momentum Can Continue, House Majority Leader Says

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., at a press conference with reporters June 4, said imposing tariffs on Mexico could affect the fate of the NAFTA rewrite in Congress but also suggested the discussions on how to fix the NAFTA rewrite can continue even under this cloud.

The good news, from the standpoint of those who are proponents of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, "is first of all, it's ... perceived as better than existing the NAFTA. There is a sense that we would really like to get an improvement on what exists."

Hoyer said that terminating NAFTA without another agreement in place would not be economically advisable. However, he noted that Democrats would not be rushed into a vote by Trump administration pressure in the form of the Statement of Administrative Action sent to the House (see 1905310015). "It would be a real misreading of the Speaker of the House of Representatives to think that they're going to jam USMCA through her. It's not going to happen," he said in response to a question from International Trade Today.