Splits within the Democratic caucus are restraining any momentum to force a House vote on President Trump’s U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade.
The White House, Canada, and Mexico have all acted in recent weeks to address various lawmakers’ demands, but some Democrats are insisting on further changes. As a consequence, there hasn’t been an increase in pressure on Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to schedule a vote.
A House Democratic staffer said that Democrats from heavily agricultural districts were inclined to support a vote, while ones from strong union districts were leaning against it. “We’ve got our own tug-of-war inside the caucus on this,” the staffer said.
Democrats are trying to iron out those differences, but they are making progress only slowly, Rep. Jim Costa, D-Calif., told the Washington Examiner. “I would like to see a vote before the August break, but there are still some issues that need to be addressed,” Acosta said.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer has been meeting with the speaker and other House Democrats to discuss their holdups. Acosta, a centrist, pro-trade Democrat, said that he’d met Lighthizer five times in two months.
The outstanding issues dividing Democrats are ensuring that Mexico abides by changes to its labor laws and keeping prices for pharmaceuticals in check.
The Trump administration addressed one major congressional hang-up about the deal Friday by exempting Canada and Mexico from tariffs on steel and aluminum. Canada and Mexico responded on Monday by removing the tariffs that they had enacted on U.S. products last year in retaliation. Many lawmakers had balked at holding a vote on USMCA until the tariffs, which they argued were doing more harm than good to the U.S. economy, had been lifted.
Last month, Mexico ratified changes to its labor laws to bring them in line with what Democrats, including Pelosi, had demanded as part of the USMCA deal.
Those two changes were meant to boost USMCA’s odds in Congress, especially in the Democrat-led House. But House Majority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told reporters Tuesday that they were still not near a vote. “As you know, organized labor says it would like to get to yes, we say we’d like to get to yes,” he said. “Mexico has acted but we need enforcement.”
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Colin Peterson, D-Minn., who backs USMCA, said in a statement Friday following the removal of the metals tariffs that “I hope this means we can move toward trade deals that stop the harm to the rural economy and restore the export markets for our farmers and ranchers.” He stopped short of calling for a vote.
The Democratic aide said that one issue holding up a vote is that the administration has yet to formally submit the USMCA deal to Congress. This has made it harder to put it on the speaker’s agenda. Under Trade Promotion Authority, the law covering congressional approval of trade deals, the House must vote within 60 days of a deal being submitted for it to be ratified. Trump could test Democrats’ opposition to the deal by forcing the issue.
On Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that Pelosi had recently told Lighthizer that more time was needed to fix address the remaining issues. She agreed to assign lawmakers to working groups to work with Lighthizer to try to work through them.
Frustrated Republicans accused the speaker of slow-walking the trade deal. “Why is Speaker Pelosi holding this up? Let’s do whats right for Hoosiers, and ALL Americans,” tweeted Rep. Greg Pence, R-Ind.
