USMCA Needs Enforcement Provisions Before Vote, Pelosi Says
A vote on the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement will “hopefully” be soon, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, but stressed that the deal needs strong enforcement provisions before any progress will be made. During a Washington Post Live interview on May 8, Pelosi said an enforcement agreement is a prerequisite to any vote. “Unless you have it built into the agreement … it’s not binding on the other country. It’s us talking to ourselves,” she said. In a recent conversation with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Pelosi said, she urged him to include enforcement in the agreement, or else the agreement is “not a serious thing.” Pelosi said the Trump administration has expressed a desire to work on enforcement and said Trump has told her “we want to get to a yes” on the deal. “So hopefully that will be soon,” she said.
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After enforcement, Pelosi said, her three main priorities with a new NAFTA are addressing the low wages of Mexican workers that “draw jobs away” from the U.S., provisions that protect the environment and lowering the cost of prescription drugs. She also said USMCA is too similar to the current NAFTA. “It’d be like saying, you don’t like NAFTA? Let me put a little syrup on top and serve it to you again, and you’re really gonna like it this time. It’s just no difference,” Pelosi said. “If the administration wants to say, ‘well, we got rid of NAFTA,’ but what we got looks a lot like it, it’s not right.”