Mexican ambassador to the U.S. Martha Barcena said Thursday that her country was committed to passing the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade and accordingly to updating Mexico’s labor laws to conform with provisions in the deal.
Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., have said that Mexico updating its labor provisions is a must if the deal is to have a floor vote in Congress.
“We are very and totally committed to amend the labor laws,” Barcena said at a Washington, D.C., event hosted by the Canadian American Business Council. “We are just waiting for the debate to take place” in Mexico’s legislature, she said.
Barcena also said Mexico “was not interested” in reopening the deal for further negotiations. Democrats, again including Pelosi, have called for the talks to be reopened. Congressional Democrats are circulating a letter to that effect, according to trade industry lobbyists.
USMCA, which would replace the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement, was negotiated with Mexico’s prior presidential administration of Enrique Pena Nieto. The current president is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a socialist critic of free trade who has wavered rhetorically on the USMCA deal at times, but generally supported it during his election bid last year.
The deal requires that at least 40 percent of all auto content be made by workers making at least $16 an hour or its equivalent. Democrats contend that Mexico has not done enough to ensure that wages reach that level.
Barcena also said that Mexico wanted to the Trump administration to restore exemptions from steel and aluminum tariffs that it had when the levies were enacted last year and indicated that getting the exemptions was important to getting Mexico to ratify the deal. “We are following very closely what is happening in the U.S.,” she said.
The White House removed the exemptions for Mexico during the USMCA negotiations as a way to pressure the trade partner to reach a deal. The administration did not restore them after a deal was struck despite pressure from business groups and some congressional lawmakers.
