After a dozen Senate Republicans called on President Donald Trump last week to advance his revised NAFTA deal this year—before Democrats take control of the House of Representatives—GOP leaders on Monday night downplayed the feasibility of such a plan as the window of opportunity quickly closes.
“It would be wonderful if we could do it, but given everything else we have to do, I think it’s, probably, sadly impractical,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn told THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Yet he sided with the senators who signed the letter, led by Pennsylvania free-trader Pat Toomey, on their assessment that passing Trump’s trade pact in a divided Congress will be a more challenging prospect than it would have been in a Republican one.
“I agree with the people who signed the letter that it’s probably going to be harder next year given the division in Congress. I would love to be able to do it if we could, but I just don’t know how we get it done given the time we have,” said Cornyn. Asked if he had spoken with the administration about the matter, he said he hadn’t but Toomey had, and that officials such as U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer apparently “don’t feel the same sense of urgency” to pass the re-branded “United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement” on an expedited schedule.
In order to pull it off, the White House would have to submit final text of the agreement and statements of administrative action before the end of November—leaving just three days if Trump wants to pursue that course. Trade experts already viewed Toomey’s efforts as a long-shot, but a lack of solid support among GOP leaders in the Senate renders it even more unlikely.
Lighthizer and others within the administration have been wary of such a Hail Mary attempt, perhaps because it could provoke even more partisan controversy. At a time when House Democrats already have their sights set on the administration, ramming NAFTA 2.0 through Congress before January would bypass key procedural steps, such as the U.S. International Trade Commission’s report to Congress on the details of the revised trade deal, and would leave newly-elected representatives out of the debate.
Republican Conference Chairman John Thune agreed with Cornyn on Monday night, offering a healthy dose of skepticism about the gambit.
“I would certainly be supportive of trying get this done as soon as possible, preferably while we still have the majorities in the House and Senate,” said Thune. “It’s very challenging from a timing standpoint, just in terms of the number of days we have to work with. You’d literally have to draw a perfect straight to get this done by the end of the year.”
Last week, Toomey argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed about the effort that “entrusting House Democrats with passing the USMCA is a dicey proposition, at best.”
“Many of the newly elected Democrats ran on opposition to all things Trump, and the next House speaker will not prioritize passage of President Trump’s signature trade achievement,” he wrote.
Toomey has his own hangups with the USMCA, however, and his support for the pact is not guaranteed. He says that passing the deal in the lame duck Congress would allow for changes that might be more amenable to free markets, rather than the other way around in a divided Congress. Specifically, he takes issue with the deal’s 16-year quasi sunset clause, new auto rules of origin and minimum wage requirements for Mexican auto workers, and the Trump administration’s continued use of Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum.
Democrats, on the other hand, have aired concerns that Trump’s negotiated minimum wage changes (which would require 30 percent of laborers in Mexican auto manufacturing to be paid at least $16 an hour, increasing to 40 percent by 2023) may not be enough to prevent jobs in America from being moved abroad, as the wage increases do not factor in for inflation.
And Trump’s policies, which are atypical for a Republican president, complicate the debate, as many of his positions align neatly with a traditional Democratic distrust for international trade—even as new Democratic members could bring a more trade-friendly approach with them to Washington. House Democratic leaders, for their part, have emphasized that firm enforcement of labor and environmental provisions is make-or-break for their support—“without enforcement, you don’t have anything,” contends House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Lighthizer has projected confidence in passing the new deal, which will come before Congress sometime next year under the normal Trade Promotion Authority timeline.
Trump is expected to sign the pact alongside Canadian and Mexican leaders at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires this week.
