President Trump will meet with top labor leaders Tuesday afternoon at the White House to get their input on trade issues, in particular the effort to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement.
While Trump and labor leaders have often been at odds, trade is one area of overlapping interest. Unions having long called for the kind of wholesale reforms to NAFTA Trump has pushed, such as including a “sunset” that would phase out the deal over a period of time unless it’s reaffirmed.
“From what we have seen up to this point, it is clear that this administration has made some progress, yet there is more that must be done,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement. “We are meeting with the president to reaffirm what a good deal for working people really looks like, starting with strong workers’ rights backed up by effective enforcement tools unlike those that have failed in that past and led to the unrelenting outsourcing of work to Mexico, eliminating corporate courts and new rules of origin that are fair to America’s workers.”
In addition to Trumka, Trump will meet with United Steel Workers President Leo Gerard, Teamsters President James P. Hoffa, United Autoworkers President Gary Jones and International Association of Machinists President Robert Martinez, Jr.
White House officials have accelerated talks with Mexico in recent weeks with rumors that they are close to reaching a bilateral “agreement in principle.” Among other priorities, the White House has pushed to raise the standards for the percentage of U.S.-made components in a North American vehicles, a labor goal.
The meeting indicates that Trump will continue take input from the unions. Trumka, usually a Trump critic, has applauded the White House’s efforts thus far and said they would be “closely reviewing the final text as soon as it is available.”
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer met with his Mexican counterpart, Secretary of the Economy Ildefonso Guajardo, to discuss such issues Tuesday in Washington. The current Mexican administration is under pressure to reach a deal. Mexico’s new leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador will be sworn in December.
[Opinion: New NAFTA must stop Canada’s intellectual property abuses]
