The House passed President Trump’s United States-Mexico-Canada trade agreement today — not because it was Trump’s deal but because it was a good deal for the nation, said presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
The Minnesota Democrat was one of several Democratic presidential candidates to signal support for the USMCA during Thursday’s Democratic primary debate, unlike Sen. Bernie Sanders, who said the bill doesn’t cover many of the Democratic Party’s primary issues.
“The word ‘climate change,’ to the best of my knowledge, is not discussed in this new NAFTA agreement at all, which is an outrage. So, no, I will not be voting for this agreement, although it makes some modest improvements,” Sanders said.
Klobuchar objected and said she will support the USMCA when it reaches the Senate because it makes substantive improvements to labor and environmental standards and because it’s harder on pharmaceutical companies than NAFTA.
This is a significant backtrack for Klobuchar, who has called the trade deal “NAFTA 2.0” and demanded substantive changes to the bill. Now, she’s on board — and she should be. The bill makes important concessions to Democratic initiatives, and even House Speaker Nancy Pelosi admitted that this trade deal is “much better than NAFTA” and “infinitely better than what was initially proposed by the administration.”
The new USMCA will include additional protections among workers’ rights laws, including the right to unionize and negotiate labor contracts. It also raises the environmental standards North American corporations must meet. And, it removes a provision that would have shielded certain drugs, known as biologics, produced by pharmaceutical companies, from generic competition.
This trade deal is a win for Democrats just as much as it is for Trump, and Klobuchar is right to praise it as such.
