Rick Dearborn, President Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, is now one of the key outside players trying to get Congress to pass Trump’s top economic agenda item, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade.
Dearborn is the executive director of the Pass USMCA Coalition, an ad hoc group of leading trade associations meant to back the trade agreement. It includes PHRMa, the main lobbying arm of drug manufacturers, the National Cotton Council, and the Canadian-American Business Council, among others.
Dearborn was one of the White House’s top political operatives prior to his departure early last year, having been involved in, most notably, passing the Republican tax overhaul legislation. As the leader of Pass USMCA, he has been in contact with Tim Pataki, Trump’s special assistant, and Deputy U.S. Trade Representative C.J. Mahoney, the ones inside the White House who are leading its USMCA lobbying effort.
The deal’s passage “is priority number one, two, and three” for the administration, Dearborn told the Washington Examiner, because it is the “template” for all of the other trade deals that the president wants to do in the future, including ones with China, Japan, and the European Union.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto have signed off on USMCA, which means the administration now only needs to get Congress to go along. At that point, they will have proved that their approach works.
As important as USMCA’s passage may be to the White House, Dearborn said that some of the administration’s other actions are complicating the push. In particular, the partial government shutdown delayed efforts to pass the deal. “We lost 35 days,” he said.
The deal was already facing a tough reception in Congress, with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle expressing skepticism and demanding last-minute changes.
The timeline as it stands now, Dearborn said, is for the trade deal’s implementing language — the part that explains how provisions will be enforced — to be done in the spring and for floor votes to follow in summer.
That doesn’t leave a lot of time for negotiation, and there are many lingering issues. The implementing language could be used as a vehicle for last-minute changes to the deal.
Trade skeptics such as Reps. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., want the bill’s negotiations reopened to make way for tougher disincentives to outsourcing and stronger protections for workers. Pascrell, who heads the House Ways and Means Committee’s subcommittee on trade, voiced his skepticism after the State of the Union address in January, saying that “the jury is still out on whether Trump’s deal will bring jobs back to the United States.”
Many congressional Republicans want Trump to lift steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico before they’ll support the new trade deal, according to Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, who is lobbying on behalf of the White House. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who heads the Senate Finance Committee, said in February that exemptions to steel tariffs for Canada and Mexico would be needed in order to get the deal passed.
“It’s pretty clear to me after visiting with the foreign minister of Canada last week and the ambassador from Mexico to the United States, that they are not going to move until all those tariffs are gone,” said Grassley.
Groups pushing for changes to the deal are going to be disappointed, Dearborn said. Canada and Mexico are just not interested in renegotiations, and the administration doesn’t like the idea either, preferring to pass USMCA as a “clean” bill.
Furthermore, he said, the steel and aluminum tariffs are technically a separate issue involving Commerce Department policy and not directly impacted by the proposed trade deal — and the administration aims to keep it that way.
“Tariffs are the issue that people discuss, but that is not what we are focused on,” Dearborn said.
Another issue is which country passes the deal first. Although the deal was signed by the countries’ three leaders at a ceremony at the G-20 summit in November last year, it must still be passed by each nation’s legislature before it can go into effect.
Dearborn dismissed the importance of timing. “I can’t imagine that the rank-and-file member of Congress is going to care if Canada or Mexico goes first. If we are ready to go, we should go,” he said.
While past trade deals were largely carried through Congress on the backs of Republicans, the House’s new Democratic majority has made bipartisan outreach more important. The Pass USMCA coalition has brought on board Gary Locke, Commerce secretary during the Clinton administration, and former Democratic congressman Joe Crowley. But the main focus remains the GOP members.
“Rick is really the one running the day-to-day stuff” for the coalition, Locke told the Washington Examiner.
The advantage the pro-USMCA side has, Dearborn said, is that so many in Congress are relative newcomers to the Capitol who have never been involved in the passage of a major trade deal. Few remain from when NAFTA passed in 1993. That creates opportunities to “educate” those members on trade issues by bringing in hometown businesses.
“It’s about answering their questions and getting good information to them and making sure that their folks back home are being very clear about what they think is good about the deal,” Dearborn said.
He pointed to hopeful signs like Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., saying in mid-February that USMCA was “probably one of the easier trade agreements to come to agreement on.”
He has no illusions that it will be easy, but added, “I’m a the-glass-is-half-full kind of a guy.”
