House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry against President Trump has evoked concerns passage of the administration’s renegotiated North American Free Trade Agreement could stall, leaving agriculture groups warning that putting off ratification of the trade deal delays new wins for farmers.
“We remain hopeful the [U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement] can still be passed this year,” said Sean Ellis, spokesman for the Idaho Farm Bureau Federation. “I would hope both parties would see the benefit that U.S. farmers and ranchers would receive from passing the USMCA.”
The new trade deal, Ellis said, “brings NAFTA to the 21st Century, and we would hope both parties would see that.”
Passing the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a replacement for NAFTA, has been a top legislative priority of the Trump administration, and administration officials have for months been negotiating behind closed doors with House Democrats over changes to the trade deal.
The White House has also dispatched top members of the administration to urge the Democrat-controlled House to act.
On Thursday, as acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire testified publicly before the House Intelligence Committee about the whistleblower complaint that was the catalyst for Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, Vice President Mike Pence delivered remarks in Indiana about the importance of passing the USMCA.
Despite these efforts, the White House has suggested legislative action in the House on a host of issues would grind to a halt as Democrats press forward with their impeachment inquiry.
“In a far departure from all of the work and results of this president, House Democrats have destroyed any chances of legislative progress for the people of this country by continuing to focus all their energy on partisan political attacks,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement Tuesday. “Their attacks on the president and his agenda are not only partisan and pathetic, they are in dereliction of their constitutional duty.”
Trump, too, indicated the prospects of the USMCA moving through the lower chamber were dim, as he told reporters before a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Wednesday he doesn’t think Pelosi “is going to have any time to sign it.”
“I don’t know that they’re ever going to get to a vote because they’re all fighting,” Trump said of Democrats, adding “it’s possible they won’t vote.”
The National Grain and Feed Association, a trade group that represents more than 1,000 grain, feed, and related businesses, said that the impeachment inquiry “certainly adds another hurdle,” but remains optimistic the USMCA will be ratified by the House.
“Lawmakers and Ambassador [Robert] Lighthizer have been working hard to find common ground on Democrats’ areas of concerns, like enforcement provisions, and environmental, labor and pharmaceutical issues in the USMCA,” said Sarah Gonzalez, the group’s director of communications. “It would be a shame for that work to be wasted.”
With House Democrats now officially marching toward impeachment proceedings, with Pelosi’s backing, Republicans on Capitol Hill have begun pressuring their counterparts to not let the inquiry distract from their legislative duties.
“Speaker Pelosi keeps saying she supports the agreement in the abstract, but the drip, drip, drip of small objections and stalling tactics keep coming,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday during a speech on the Senate floor. “Even as Speaker Pelosi’s moderate members publicly beg her to pass this deal, it’s almost as though she’s still looking for reasons to duck it.”
Canada, Mexico, and the United States, he added “are waiting for Speaker Pelosi to remember that serving the public interest requires more than just picking fights with the president.”
But House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal told reporters Wednesday the impeachment inquiry wouldn’t stand in the way of their efforts to reach an agreement on the USMCA.
“There is no reason, based on what happened yesterday, to think that there’s any deterrents that will hold us back,” Neal said, according to Politico.
If the House doesn’t pass the USMCA this year, Trump has said his administration would try again after the 2020 election, when, according to the president, Republicans will win back control of the House.
But Gonzales warned that if Congress doesn’t approve the new agreement and the Trump administration pulls out of NAFTA — which the president calls “horrible” — it would leave the U.S. without any trade deal with Mexico and Canada, and add to the uncertainty the U.S. agriculture industry is already experiencing.
“Without any trade deal, the largely tariff-free trade relationship between the nations could erode, damaging North America’s balance of trade and likely damaging the economies of all three nations,” she said. “It’s all about certainty. We need USMCA ratified to ensure our agricultural industry has ideal market access in North America and to boost our chances for increased market access around the globe.”
Ellis, of the Idaho Farm Bureau, said the USMCA delivered “significant wins” for the U.S. and Idaho agriculture industry, particularly for dairy, wheat, and wine.
“The sooner we get those new opportunities, the better,” he said.
Pelosi announced Tuesday the House would begin an impeachment inquiry against Trump after a whistleblower filed a complaint with Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson regarding a July call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The complaint, declassified Wednesday and made public Thursday, alleges senior White House officials “intervened to ‘lock down’ all records of the phone call, especially the word-for-word transcript of the call” produced by the White House Situation Room.
The rough transcript of the call was released by the White House on Wednesday and showed Trump urged Zelensky to investigate allegations of corruption against Democratic presidential frontrunner and former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. The president also urged Zelensky to work with Attorney General Bill Barr and Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney.
