Senators Call for Stronger Rules of Origin, Transshipment Enforcement in NAFTA
Calling NAFTA "a destructive race to the bottom," a small group of Senate Democrats sent a letter to President Donald Trump Feb. 2 asking that the trade agreement include stronger rules of origin and transshipment rules. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and five Democrats said NAFTA must include new rules of origin "safeguards that reduce opportunities for leakage in order to incentivize production in North America." Better rules to "stop 'transshipment' cheating must also be added."
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Also needed are changes to imported food safety requirements, the lawmakers said. "A revised NAFTA must require that all imported food meet U.S. safety standards and must include enhanced border inspection," they said. "Further, the right to require food labeling -- including mandatory country-of-origin labels for meat and dolphin-safe labels for tuna -- must be explicitly affirmed and protected so consumers can make informed choices."
Environmental and labor standards need to be stricter, and the investor-state dispute settlement system needs to be abandoned, the senators said. The ISDS protects foreign investors, thus there are incentives to move jobs to low-wage locations. NAFTA's procurement rules that undermine "Buy American" preferences need to be eliminated as well, the lawmakers said. "There is broad public support nationwide and across partisan divides to replace the current rigged U.S. trade agreement model epitomized by NAFTA," the letter says. They said the corporate lobby opposes these changes.