When a Political Win Is a Loss
On January 29, 2020, two weeks after the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly passed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement Implementation Act (H.R. 5430) — a 239-page bill that both approves and implements the separate 2,410-page trade USMCA scheme — President Trump signed the legislation into law. A week earlier, in his remarks delivered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump praised the new agreement, contrasting it with NAFTA. “As I mentioned earlier, we ended the NAFTA disaster — one of the worst trade deals ever made, not even close — and replaced it with the incredible new trade deal, the USMCA — that’s Mexico and Canada,” Trump boasted.
The new USMCA will take effect once all three nations ratify the agreement — with only Canada remaining to complete the process. Despite President Trump’s strong aversion for the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, his assertion that NAFTA is no more is not entirely accurate, at least according to those closest to the negotiation of the new agreement.
At the signing ceremony held in Mexico City, for the “Protocol of Amendment to the Agreement Between the United States of America, the United Mexican States, and Canada” — a 27-page document of changes made to the USMCA agreed to by House Democrats — Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who also served as Canada’s top negotiator on the USMCA, praised the progressive nature of the agreement and also touted how it “preserves NAFTA.” “When this agreement is enacted, NAFTA will not only be preserved; it will be updated, improved, and modernized,” Freeland said.
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