The Trump administration on Thursday began the process for seeking congressional approval of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade, starting the clock on when the House would be required to vote in order to ratify it.
The White House had waited on a greenlight from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to submit the deal but indicated in recent weeks it had grown impatient. Pelosi said the White House was jumping the gun.
U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer submitted a Statement of Administrative Action letter to congressional leaders on Thursday. The letter allows the White House to formally submit the deal to Congress within 30 days. Once the draft deal itself is submitted to Congress, the House must vote on it in 60 days, according to Trade Promotion Authority, the law covering congressional approval of deals.
“The Trump Administration’s decision to send Congress a draft statement of administrative action before we have finished working with U.S. Trade Representative Lighthizer to ensure the USMCA benefits American workers and farmers is not a positive step,” Pelosi said in a statement Thursday. “It indicates a lack of knowledge on the part of the Administration on the policy and process to pass a trade agreement.”
The White House had been engaged in talks with the speaker, who had held up the vote until issues such as the deal’s labor rights enforcement provisions were shored up. Last week, President Trump said, “Bob Lighthizer is waiting to get the okay from her to send it in. But we’re at a point where we’re just going to have to send it in.”
Whether a vote on the deal is scheduled is completely at Pelosi’s discretion. Marc Short, chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, said on Wednesday that the speaker “has the keys here about when this gets brought up and what the process is,” but that the administration was trying to pressure her to get a vote scheduled by getting businesses and pro-trade Democrats to lobby her office.
Democrats argued the move was sabotaging attempts to reach consensus on the remaining issues. “With trademark chaos, this preemptive move seeks to supplant what could have been a productive process. Without strong labor provisions, environmental protections, and real enforcement that promotes American job creation, we are still miles away from the finish line,” said Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J.
The White House’s move comes as U.S. trade partners were making their own moves to ratify the deal. Canada launched its process to gets its parliament to approve it on Wednesday. Mexico submitted the deal to its Republic of the Congress on Thursday.
Spokesmen for the White House and the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office did not respond to requests for comment.
“I want to assure you that we’re making energetic efforts to move approval through the Congress of the United States this summer,” Pence said at a joint press conference Thursday in Ottawa with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
