House Democrats Still Wrestling With How to Change USMCA

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal, D-Mass., said that the two sides made progress again on edits to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement when they met Sept. 20. "Once issues are resolved, they're going to come off the table, and we're not going to revisit them as we proceed to the next one," Neal said. He said the Democrat working group he leads will have a written response for U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer next week, when they meet again.

One of the tricky questions is how to enforce the USMCA. Unresolved is how state-to-state dispute settlement can be binding if one country can block the formation of a panel. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, the top Republican on Ways and Means, said Republicans think ending panel blocking is key. "If it applies to the entire agreement, we think that's tremendously helpful," he said during a hallway interview at the Capitol. "If it applies only to labor, for example, that would be unacceptable."

There's also a proposal that officials from the U.S. -- perhaps with Mexican officials as well -- be authorized to inspect specific factories where there are allegations of labor violations. Brady said "Mexico's been pretty clear that they're negative on that." He said that USTR is trying to find something that Mexico can agree to but that still provides a way to address labor violations at factories.

Democrats and unions have complained that the Mexican budget does not appear to adequately fund the transformation of its labor union laws. Brady said it's pretty typical that the U.S. offers both expertise and funding to trading partners to help them build capacity and raise their standards, and he'd hope that would happen again in this implementing bill.

The USMCA's 10-year biologics exclusivity period is still angering Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., a member of the working group who has tried for years to shorten the period in U.S. law. She was asked whether it would be acceptable to keep it at 10 years, but have language that if Congress did reduce the period domestically, the USMCA would automatically reduce that period as well. "Our position from Day One has been that this doesn't have a place in the trade agreement. So we're still negotiating along those lines," she said.

But other Democrats have been expressing openness to this solution.

Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., said in a hallway interview, "That definitely would move the needle significantly. Again, because that's a pretty tricky sort of structure, I'd really want to read the language pretty closely, but it does seem to get at the crux of the problem, which is you're handcuffing future Congresses with the existing language."

Neal has said it could be possible to have a House vote before Thanksgiving (see 1909190057), and Brady said he didn't think there would be a revolt if that happened -- even though that would mean fewer than 45 legislative days between the arrival of the implementing bill and the vote. The fast track law says Ways and Means has up to 45 days to consider the bill once it arrives, but does not require a minimum amount of time for deliberation. The mock markup process is not part of the statute at all.

"I think Chairman Neal has the ability to keep the integrity of the process, make those markups occur. No need for a shortcut," Brady said. "I've been involved in a lot of trade agreements. You don't hear a lot of complaints [this time] about a secret process, [that] no one knows what's in the agreement."