U.S. Senate adopts NAFTA successor; trade deal awaits Trump’s signature

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer (center) leaves Capitol Hill with his staff Thursday after watching the Senate approve the new North American trade agreement.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer (center) leaves Capitol Hill with his staff Thursday after watching the Senate approve the new North American trade agreement.


WASHINGTON -- The Senate overwhelmingly approved a new North American trade agreement Thursday that rewrites the rules of trade with Canada and Mexico and gives President Donald Trump a major policy win before senators turn their full attention to his impeachment trial.

The vote was 89-10. The measure goes to Trump, who is expected to sign it next week. It would replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, known as NAFTA, which tore down most trade barriers and triggered a surge in trade. But Trump and other critics blamed that pact for encouraging U.S. companies to move their manufacturing plants south of the border to take advantage of low-wage Mexican laborers.

Passage of the trade bill, called the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, came one day after Trump signed a new trade agreement with China, easing trade tensions between the economic powers.

"Quite a week of substantive accomplishments for the nation, for the president and for our international trade," said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., shortly before the vote.

The final vote occurred just moments before Congress opened an impeachment trial, with House Democrats reading the formal charges from the well of the Senate. With the trial and an election year, Congress is not expected to pass many major bills. The trade bill gives lawmakers from both parties the chance to cite progress on an important economic issue before the November vote.

Trump campaigned in 2016 on ripping up trade deals that he said added to the nation's trade deficit and cost the country manufacturing jobs. He promised he would rewrite NAFTA if elected, a pact he described as "the worst trade deal in history."

Mexico has already approved the agreement. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government will move forward on ratification when Parliament reconvenes in Ottawa later this month, but the speed of its passage will depend on opposition lawmakers, a Canadian government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Trudeau lost his parliamentary majority in an election last fall, but the deal is still likely to pass.

"It's about time we have this agreement ratified," Rich Hillman, president of the Arkansas Farm Bureau, said in a statement after the vote.

"This marks consecutive agreements that will benefit Arkansas farmers and ranchers," he said. "Anything that benefits Arkansas agriculture also benefits our state's tax base and, ultimately, the Arkansas economy."

Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. trade representative, sat with members of his staff in the Senate gallery looking on as senators cast their votes.

The agreement aims to have more cars produced in the United States, where workers earn an average of at least $16 an hour. It also secured changes that require Mexico to change its laws to make it easier for workers to form independent unions, which should improve worker conditions and wages and reduce the incentive for U.S. companies to relocate their plants.

While the administration completed its negotiations with Canada and Mexico more than a year ago, Democrats in the House insisted on changes that they said made it more likely Mexico would follow through on its commitments. As part of those negotiations, the administration agreed to drop a provision that offered expensive biologic drugs -- made from living cells -- 10 years of protection from cheaper knockoff competition. Democrats overwhelmingly opposed that provision.

BACKERS, CRITICS

Republicans and the president have complained about how long it took to complete the negotiations, but the talks resulted in a rare mix of support for a trade agreement.

The AFL-CIO, an association of trade unions, endorsed the measure, as did scores of business and farm groups. "Getting the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO to both endorse this trade deal was no easy feat, and it took both sides' good faith efforts to get us here," said Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.

The biggest holdouts were environmental groups, which continue their opposition, saying the deal doesn't address climate change. Indeed, they contend the agreement would contribute to rising temperatures.

"Despite the fact that it includes very good labor provisions, I am voting against USMCA because it does not address climate change, the greatest threat facing the planet," said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.

The only Republican who voted against the agreement was Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa.

"It will mean higher prices for American consumers, who will have to pay more money for a car and therefore will have less money available for any of the other things they would like to consume," Toomey said. "It will probably lead to an increase or acceleration in the shift to automation."

Among the senators still seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, Bernie Sanders was the lone "no" vote.

Other senators who opposed the plan did so mainly out of concern about the deal's lack of provisions to combat climate change. Those voting against the pact included Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.; Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii; Sen. Edward Markey, D-Mass.; Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.; and Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I.

Lawmakers initially suggested that a Senate vote on the pact would be delayed until after the impeachment trial, which will begin in earnest Tuesday and eat into the Senate's time for legislative work. But when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California decided to delay sending the articles of impeachment, senators seized the opportunity to move on the trade pact.

Within nine days, six Senate committees had given the implementing legislation seals of approval, allowing for the vote to occur Thursday morning before the impeachment trial formally began.

"I never thought I'd be voting for a trade agreement during my Senate tenure that I wrote a big part of," said Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, whose vote for the pact was his first for a trade agreement in a quarter-century. Brown embraced the measure after labor enforcement language that he and Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., crafted was included in the final agreement.

In 1993, NAFTA passed the Senate on a 61-38 vote, and the deal has since been criticized by lawmakers across Capitol Hill for enabling the flow of U.S. jobs to Mexico. A substantial part of the new agreement is dedicated to updating that original text, adding revised guidelines for food safety, e-commerce and online data flows as well as anti-corruption provisions.

Information for this article was contributed by Kevin Freking of The Associated Press; by Emily Cochrane of The New York Times; and by Erik Wasson and Josh Wingrove of Bloomberg News.

A Section on 01/17/2020

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