SPS, Currency Manipulation Could Potentially Be Addressed in NAFTA Renegotiation, Analysts Say
Sanitary/phytosanitary (SPS) regulations, currency manipulation and investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) could be areas appropriate to cover in the expected NAFTA renegotiation, analysts said during a panel discussion on Capitol Hill April 19. SPS could be a “low-hanging fruit” to tackle during planned discussions, partly because the U.S. already has a deep Rolodex of Canadian and Mexican regulators in that area due to the high volume of agricultural trade among the three nations. “The question is, is it seen as a win-win, or is it something we’re going to have to pay something for?” said Darci Vetter, former chief agricultural negotiator for the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, during the session. “And then we’ll have a strategic decision to make.”
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
The U.S. will need to determine whether Canadian dairy pricing policies are legal under NAFTA and World Trade Organization obligations (see 1704130051), Vetter said during the discussion hosted by the Georgetown University Center for Business and Public Policy. The U.S., however, shouldn’t conduct negotiations in a way that would risk losing substantial agricultural market access it has gained with its neighbors since NAFTA entered into force in 1994, Vetter said. “If we wanted [NAFTA] to include [dairy] products, and we were going to ask Canada for more under NAFTA, presumably, they would say, ‘What more are you going to give us?’” she said. “So that’s where, in a negotiating dynamic, it’s not clear, just like on government procurement, we want more, but, ‘We’d like you to take less,’ is a hard mandate to bring home. So there’s a lot of dynamics at play, and we have to think about the best place to get recourse for what’s stopping our products from moving right now.”
Although currency manipulation isn’t an immediate problem among trading partners, it would be beneficial to bring regional regulatory structures to the issue through free trade agreements, Fordham University law professor Matt Gold said during the session. “I don’t know what our chances are of getting that” in NAFTA, “but it would be fantastic to get that,” said Gold, who also served as deputy assistant U.S. trade representative for North America in 2012. He added that, although NAFTA’s ISDS chapter is “much better” than several groups and individuals think, the three parties could tweak the agreement to shrink the number of frivolous cases people can bring under that section, which are a “very, very big” problem.