[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 163 (Tuesday, October 2, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Page S6432]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                 USMCA

  Mr. President, finally, I am encouraged that the President and his 
team have negotiated an agreement to add Canada, along with Mexico, to 
a new North American trade agreement. They are not calling it NAFTA; 
they have changed the name to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. I think 
this is going to be a step forward. I have now looked at the summary 
from it. We don't have the details yet--and I, of course, want to see 
the final details--but I think it has two general advantages for us.
  One is that it will encourage more production in North America of 
things like automobiles because you have to have a higher American 
content--Canadian, Mexican, and U.S. content now--in automobiles than 
you did under the old agreement. You will have more cars being built in 
America and North America as well as auto parts. I think that is good.
  I also think there are other things in the agreement that will help 
to encourage production in the United States because it will level the 
playing field more with our country. It does things with regard to 
Canada that are long overdue to try to keep it from putting protection 
policies in place on its agriculture products, especially its dairy 
products. So, when it sends powdered milk to us now, it can't take 
advantage of the subsidies it is providing for its milk producers, as 
an example. It lets our dairy farmers be able to compete on a more 
level playing field.
  Those are the kinds of things that are in the agreement. I, again, 
look forward to seeing the entire agreement. I think having a North 
American compact that is updated is good because the NAFTA agreement 
was 24 years old. We have modernized it and put new labor standards in 
place, as an example.
  The second, again, is to level the playing field further with these 
countries in our region that are our allies and, therefore, should not 
be viewed as national security threats. We shouldn't be putting tariffs 
in place on them on a national security basis, which we were doing and 
threatening to do more of, including on autos under section 232, it is 
called. We now have better trade agreements with these countries that 
are our allies but that also had some barriers in place for our 
exports. We need to be sure their imports are going to be fairly traded 
in this country. So it is positive, I think, to have this agreement.
  Now, frankly, it enables us as a North American market to be more 
effective in dealing with some of the trade disputes we have had with 
other parts of the world, most notably with China, with which we do 
have a lot of unfair trade going on. China is not playing by the rules 
often, and this helps us to have Canada and Mexico with us to be able 
to address those issues with China, as an example.
  Those are some of the things that are happening this week that I am 
happy about, and I think we are making some progress.