USMCA Renewal Challenges
From the Ag Information Network, I’m Bob Larson with today’s Fruit Grower Report. Two of the three USMCA nations, Mexico and Canada, have said they'd like it to see it continue.
But President Trump isn't so sure and said as much when speaking to reporters at the June G7 meeting in France …
TRUMP … “I would prefer not having an agreement, but I am open to doing it. We'll see what happens. (R)So as of now, it is just going to stick around for ten years, you will be able to... (T)No, it is not sticking around. It will be terminated. (R)Not after a decade? (T)It expires in a decade. I prefer that. I view it as possibly expiring immediately.”
That's all fairly confusing, but mostly accurate.
The Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, believes the cross-border USMCA integrations to be good, but says that’s because the "ambitions" of President Trump have changed the review process that’s already under pressure …
CARNEY … “What we're seeing right now is that we have an agreement. We have that integration. Tariffs are being put up in a series of areas that are violations of the agreement. I call a spade a spade, might as well. And so, there's a question about whether that alignment is still there. Can we really rely ultimately on what's written in the agreement, what's in a dispute settlement mechanism? And that's a very different environment than what was there previously.”
The Cato Institute concludes President Trump's refusal to extend the agreement is not its death knell but is also far from harmless.
Since the USMCA went into force, Mexico and Canada have each surpassed China as the number one and two U.S. trade partners.
