washington
CNN
—
Former President Donald Trump has renewed his vow to save U.S. manufacturing and bring back jobs by rewriting trade deals with Mexico and Canada.
But this time, he wants to renegotiate his own trade deal rather than replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which he has often described as “the worst trade deal in history.”
President Trump signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) in 2018. The agreement entered into force in January 2020 and replaced NAFTA.
In 2018, President Trump said the USMCA would be “the most modern, up-to-date, balanced trade agreement in our nation’s history, with the most advanced worker protections ever developed.” He said he was deaf.
But now he thinks it can be improved.
“After taking office, I will formally notify Mexico and Canada of my intention to invoke the six-year renegotiation clause of the USMCA,” President Trump said in a speech at the Detroit Economic Club last week.
The USMCA includes a provision requiring a review by the three signatories on its sixth anniversary.
Asked about his plans to renegotiate the USMCA in an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo that aired on Sunday, President Trump said the deal he put together would not be undermined.
“We want to do better deals. We want to leverage the auto industry from now on,” he said.
Vice President Kamala Harris also said she would use the USMCA review process.
Harris, now the Democratic presidential candidate, was one of 10 U.S. senators to vote against USMCA at the time.
“We knew it would not be enough to protect our country and its workers,” she said in a statement last week.
After the 2020 Senate vote, Harris said she was concerned that the USMCA’s environmental provisions did not adequately address climate change.
Much of the USMCA simply updated the 25-year-old NAFTA.
One of the biggest changes was new incentives to build cars and trucks in North America. USMCA requires 75% of auto parts to be made in one of three countries to avoid tariffs when moving across borders, an increase from the previous 62.5% rule.
It also required workers making more than $16 an hour to make more auto parts.
The trade agreement brings significant new benefits to the technology sector with a chapter on digital trade that was not included in the original NAFTA.
Strong labor regulations and environmental protections were also included.
