- The first round of talks to redo the three-nation trade pact concluded in Washington on Sunday.http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/20/news/economy/nafta-negotiations/index.html
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-11/u-s-partners-ponder-life-after-nafta-as-talks-hail-chapter-deal The fourth round of talks to update the North American Free Trade Agreement began Wednesday in the Washington area. Trump has maintained his threat to walk out, even amid rising opposition at home to his hardline stance. On the eve of talks, the top U.S. business group pledged to fight to preserve the pact, while a Congressional committee said it was committed to successful talks and Mexico signaled it can live without the accord.
- Senior Canadian, U.S. and Mexican officials trying to rescue slow-moving talks to update the NAFTA trade pact met on Monday in a new bid to resolve key issues before regional elections complicate the process.Discussions in Washington will center on one particularly contentious area — the U.S. demand for tougher rules of origin governing what percentage of a car needs to be built in the NAFTA region to avoid tariffs. Other challenges include the future of the pact’s dispute-resolution mechanism and a U.S. proposal for a sunset clause that could automatically kill the deal after five years. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trade-nafta/nafta-talks-resume-amid-fears-of-zombie-deal-idUSKBN1I80BK
- 加墨兩國外長周三會晤，重申對NAFTA的三邊談判承諾，拒絕特朗普提出雙邊談判及加入「日落條款」的要求。http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/china_world/20180727/00180_002.html; Lopez Obrador has made it clear that the current government of Enrique Pena Nieto will be the one to continue the NAFTA negotiations. Lopez Obrador would only send his confidante Jesus Seade, who made clear in an interview with the magazine US Trade that he would reject the same points that the current Mexican government has rejected. This is mainly about the so-called 'Sunset clause,' which would see the new NAFTA agreement end automatically after five years should the three member states not agree on an extension beforehand. In addition, Mexico and Canada have rejected US demands for a softening of the arbitration agreement, higher hurdles for the delivery of cars and car parts to the US, a ban on state aid to agriculture and an immediate expansion of imports of US goods to help balance out the trade imbalances. https://www.dw.com/en/mexico-pushes-ahead-with-speedy-nafta-game-plan/a-44834644
- https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-26/lighthizer-signals-nafta-negotiations-could-wrap-up-next-month
- https://www.bbc.com/news/business-45323634 The US and Mexico have reached common ground on key trade terms as pressure mounts to complete renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.US President Donald Trump, a frequent critic of the existing deal, announced the apparent breakthrough on Monday. The final outcome remained in doubt as Canada, the third country in the treaty, has not signed off.
-新協定重點 http://pdf.wenweipo.com/2018/10/02/a24-1002.pdf
- as details of the newly renegotiated deal (the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement or USMCA) emerge, questions remain about what Canada's signature guarantees in terms of protections, and what concessions were made. Canada seems to have escaped the president's favourite sledgehammer — Section 232 national security tariffs — which would slap 20 to 25 per cent duties on cars and auto parts imported into the U.S.Trump has agreed that no hard limit will be placed on Canadian auto exports to the U.S., though if the U.S. moves forward with the imposition of worldwide 232 tariffs on autos, those would also apply to Canada. Access to Canada's dairy market soured Trump even before NAFTA renegotiations began, as the U.S. has long dealt with chronic overproduction of milk products.The new deal would give American farmers greater access to Canada's dairy industry, worth about 3.6 per cent of Canada's current dairy market, according to the Dairy Farmers of Canada. The U.S. had negotiated access worth about 3.25 per cent of Canada's market in the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but then withdrew, leaving that share of Canada's market now available to dairy products from the countries that remain in the agreement, like New Zealand and Australia.But more significant to the industry's long-term viability is the dismantling of Canada's "Class 7" dairy ingredient pricing strategy: a solution to Canada's skim milk surplus that was negotiated between Canadian farmers and processors. (The more consumers increase their consumption of butter, as they have in recent years, the more skim milk is generated.)The lower dairy ingredient price removed the incentive for dairy processors to use American diafiltered milk products that were entering Canada through a loophole. When American farmers lost contracts, they complained about Canada's unfair trade practices, so U.S. negotiators focused on this concession to please this politically significant constitutency in some states.While market access concessions permanently guarantee increasing amounts of foreign dairy products, the Canadian dairy industry has suggested losing Class 7 may be a more costly and serious threat to its long-term sustainability.https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/usmca-nafta-what-we-know-1.4845103
USA
- http://www.scmp.com/business/article/2068234/even-movie-theatre-popcorn-and-avocados-could-become-victims-end-nafta Trump blames Nafta – signed in 1994 under President Bill Clinton and which he calls the “worst trade deal in history” – for the loss of manufacturing jobs in America’s Rust Belt, the very states that helped catapult him to victory. Nafta eliminates trade barriers between the US and Canada and Mexico and US exports of many agricultural products to both have soared since it was enacted. The president has the authority to give Canada and Mexico six months notice of withdrawal. Over the weekend the head of Mexico’s largest movie theatre chain, for instance, joined the growing list of companies – which already includes General Motors, Toyota Motor and hundreds of Mexican avocado farmers – who say an end to Nafta will mean business disaster.He was joined by largest US cattle trade group, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, which represents more than 175,000 cattle producers and feeders, which said it’s “very concerned” about Trump’s pledge to renegotiate the agreement. Cinepolis de Mexico SA, the world’s fourth-largest cinema chain, buys about $10 million a year of American kernels from farmers in Kansas, Missouri and Iowa, according to chief executive officer Alejandro Ramirez. While Cinepolis’s purchases are just a drop in the bucket of the more than $2 billion in corn that the US exports to Mexico annually, it shows the scope for potential impact if other buyers followed suit. Kent Bacus, director of international trade and market access at the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, said a shakeup of Nafta comes as US beef output is forecast to rise to a six-year high. More supplies mean the industry must continue to export or face a chronic oversupply.
- http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21716660-revision-north-american-trade-deal-will-not-give-donald-trump-what-he-wants
- http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-nafta-idUSKCN18E28O The Trump administration on Thursday set the clock ticking toward a mid-August start of renegotiations of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico to try to win better terms for U.S. workers and manufacturers. With a letter to U.S. lawmakers, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said he triggered a 90-day consultation period with Congress, industries and the American public that would allow talks over one of the world's biggest trading blocs to begin by Aug. 16. Renegotiation of NAFTA was a key campaign promise of U.S. President Donald Trump, who frequently called the 23-year-old trade pact a "disaster" that has drained U.S. factories and well-paid manufacturing jobs to Mexico.
- http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21724431-uncertainty-over-trade-last-thing-they-need-why-farmers-are-anxious-about-nafta
- https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2017/may/ustr-trump-administration-announces United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer notified Congress that President Trump intends to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). USTR will publish a notice in the Federal Register requesting public input on the direction, focus, and content of the North American Free Trade Agreement negotiations.
- https://www.economist.com/news/americas/21725345-canada-and-mexico-face-tricky-renegotiation-their-trade-deal-united-states On July 17th, in a letter to Congress, the United States trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, made the administration’s intentions clearer. They are closer to revision than destruction, which is a relief for Mexico and Canada, the United States’ NAFTA partners. But alongside conventional-sounding negotiating objectives are flashes of Trumpian aggression and hints that the United States will demand painful changes to the deal. The stakes are high. A quarter of American trade in goods and services is with Mexico and Canada. The three economies tend to grow or shrink together and have integrated supply chains.
- https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/us-steel-lighthizer-national-security-1.4763290 The U.S. is hoping for a NAFTA agreement with Mexico this summer that would prompt Canada to soften its negotiating position, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told a U.S. Senate subcommittee Thursday.
- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada is not focused on a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) name-change Thursday in response to a report that U.S. President Donald Trump has a new name in mind.The Wall Street Journal has reported that Trump proposed to change NAFTA’s name to the “USMC” pact — standing for U.S., Mexico and Canada — at a private Republican fundraiser Wednesday. Trump also stated that he would drop the letter “C” if Canada doesn’t agree to the changes he is seeking, according to sources.https://globalnews.ca/news/4446347/donald-trump-nafta-usmc/
- President Trump told reporters after the conclusion of the summit that he would be “formally terminating NAFTA shortly” but prospects for congressional approval of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement remain uncertain. Congress is not likely to take up legislation to implement the USMCA until early 2019. For one thing, the U.S. International Trade Commission has up to 105 days after the agreement’s signing (until approximately 15 March) to submit a report on its likely economic impact. While that investigation is already underway, the deadline for public comment is not until 20 December. In addition, the final agreement text must be submitted at least 30 days before implementing legislation is introduced in Congress, and both the House and Senate are statutorily allowed specific periods of time to consider and vote on that bill. This timing could make it more difficult to pass implementing legislation because as of January Democrats will have a majority in the House of Representatives and key Democrats say they will oppose the agreement unless its labour, environment and enforcement provisions are strengthened. http://economists-pick-research.hktdc.com/business-news/article/Regulatory-Alert-US/NAFTA-Replacement-Deal-Signed-but-Lawmakers-Warn-of-Hurdles-Ahead/baus/en/1/1X300W0C/1X0AFWZD.htm?utm_source=weky_edm&utm_campaign=edm_promo_upd&utm_medium=edm&DCSext.dept=12&WT.mc_id=6210983
- private sector
- https://www.ft.com/content/8c2232ec-8235-11e7-a4ce-15b2513cb3ff The head of Cargill has warned Donald Trump that he risks making a “destructive” mistake for the US economy and American workers if he walks away from the North American Free Trade Agreement. David MacLennan, chief executive of the world’s largest agricultural commodities supplier, urged the US to focus on improving a 23-year-old trade agreement that overall had been of great benefit to the US and neighbouring Canada and Mexico. His warning came as talks to renegotiate the pact that underpins business in a quarter of the global economy made a tense start on Wednesday with Canada and Mexico issued thinly-veiled rebukes to Mr Trump.
- https://www.ft.com/content/8bd9cabe-829b-11e7-a4ce-15b2513cb3ff Carmakers including Ford and GM have opposed such a move, arguing that their international competitiveness is dependent on vast North American supply chains. Both Canada and Mexico also oppose any specific content rules.
- Major automakers, suppliers and auto dealers launched a new coalition on Tuesday to urge U.S. President Donald Trump not to withdraw from the North American Free Trade Agreement. Auto trade associations representing major carmakers including General Motors Co (GM.N), Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T), Volkswagen AG (VOWG_p.DE), Hyundai Motor Co (005380.KS) and Ford Motor Co (F.N) are part of the coalition dubbed “Driving American Jobs.” https://www.reuters.com/article/us-trade-nafta-autos/auto-industry-tells-trump-were-winning-with-nafta-idUSKBN1CT1FJ
- http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/29/news/economy/nafta-round-6/index.htmlCurrently, about 62% of car parts in a vehicle sold in North America must come from the region. The goal is to maintain some car production -- and jobs -- in North America. The Trump administration proposed raising that threshold to 85% from 62%. Of the parts sourced from within North America, half would have to come from the United States, according to the U.S. proposal. The U.S.-specific rule appears to be the biggest deal breaker for Canada and Mexico. see also economist article "rule breakers" 3feb18
- Three of the nation’s most prominent trade associations warned that any efforts to weaken arbitration panels at the heart of the North American Free Trade Agreement “will serve to undermine business community support” for Nafta renegotiations. https://www.wsj.com/articles/big-business-groups-affirm-support-for-nafta-arbitration-panels-1503591518
- https://www.ft.com/content/97179336-aab2-11e7-ab55-27219df83c97
The US Chamber of Commerce said on Friday the Trump administration's proposals appeared designed to sabotage the Nafta negotiations and lay the groundwork for a US withdrawal that would be catastrophic for the country’s economy.
- ft 3oct18 deal revamp unlikely repair us car industry
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/even-his-allies-think-that-trumps-trade-plans-are-overloading-the-system/2018/05/17/31c022ee-593c-11e8-b656-a5f8c2a9295d_story.html President Trump Thursday missed House Speaker Paul Ryan’s deadline for a new North American trade deal, cast doubt on prospects for averting a trade war with China hours before meeting a top Chinese official and bragged about his negotiating skills.
Canada
- http://www.canadianmanufacturing.com/exporting-and-importing/prepared-moments-drama-says-freeland-nafta-talks-199418/ Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland released Canada’s list of key demands for a new North American Free Trade Agreement as talks get set to begin in Washington Aug. 16.Freeland’s NAFTA wish list, which is much shorter than the U.S. list of more than 100 items, includes:
- A new chapter on labour standards. The original NAFTA included a labour section as an addendum, inserted into the agreement after Bill Clinton was elected and insisted on a few changes. Some officials in Canada and the U.S. have identified a goal of tougher labour rules: Increasing Mexican wages, to make auto plants in the other countries more affordable.
- A new chapter on environmental standards. This was also added as an afterthought to the original NAFTA, placed there after Clinton’s election. Freeland says she wants a chapter that ensures no country can weaken environmental protection to attract investment. She also says it should support efforts against climate change.
- A new chapter on gender rights.
- A new chapter on Indigenous rights.
- Reforms to the investor-state dispute settlement process. Specifically, Freeland referred to Chapter 11—which involves companies suing governments. She said she wants reforms so that “governments have an unassailable right to regulate in the public interest.” This is not to be confused with Chapter 19, which regulates disputes between companies over dumping, in cases like softwood lumber, and which the U.S. administration might seek to eliminate.
- Expand procurement. For years, Canada has wanted to kill Buy American rules for construction projects at the state and local level. It could be a tough sell. U.S. lawmakers are demanding even more Buy American rules, which is something President Donald Trump campaigned on. Freeland said: “Local-content provisions for major government contracts are political junk food: superficially appetizing, but unhealthy in the long run.”
- Freer movement of professionals. NAFTA includes a list of professions where people can easily get a visa to work across the border. It’s an old list—it mentions land surveyors and range conservationists, but not computer programmers. International companies want this list expanded to make it easier for employees to move between offices.
- Protect Canada’s supply-management system for dairy and poultry. Canada does not have free trade in these areas, and regulates imports and prices.
- Protect cultural exemptions. Canada insisted on protections in the old agreement for cultural industries, like publishing and broadcasting. The U.S.’s annual report on international trade barriers lists this as an irritant.
- Maintaining a process to regulate anti-dumping and countervailing disputes, like the one over softwood lumber. Freeland noted that Canada briefly walked out of the original talks in 1987, as this was a deal-breaker. The U.S. says it now wants to get rid of the resulting Chapter 19. Some observers say it might simply be modified.
- 加拿大與美國仍然未能就重新修訂《北美自由貿易協定》（NAFTA）達成共識，加國總理杜魯多周日表示，雙方談判代表本周在紐約總部舉行的聯合國大會期間，可能舉行非正式會面。他又否認因加拿大兩個省將舉行選舉而延遲簽署協議。據悉，加拿大外長方慧蘭將在聯合國大會上代表該國發表演說。http://orientaldaily.on.cc/cnt/china_world/20180925/00180_007.html
- milk industry
- industry's interests led to talks on market opening in stalemate hket 19sep18 a10
Mexico
- http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/5617 In post-NAFTA Mexico, 42 percent of the food consumed comes in from abroad. Before NAFTA, the country spent $1.8 billion dollars on food imports. It now spends a whopping $24 billion. Rural researcher Ernesto Ladrón de Guevara notes that in some basic foods, the dependency on imports is dramatic: 80 percent in rice, 95 percent in soybeans, 33 percent in beans, and 56 percent in wheat. The country is the world’s number-one importer of powdered milk. NAFTA decimated Mexico’s once-thriving dairy sector, and the market takeover by transnational powdered milk is linked to the crisis in infant malnutrition. Mexico imports 33 percent of its consumption, a figure that belies the reliance on imports because the sheer volume of consumption is so large. Ladrón de Guevara states that it has gone from importing around 250,000 tons before NAFTA to 13 million tons. Transnational traders often favor imports over national production because of the attractive credit arrangements offered by the United States, making it “a double business—importing corn and money.” The U.S. department of agriculture estimates that if current trends continue Mexico will acquire 80 percent of its food from other countries (mostly the United States). The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization calls a country food dependent when the cost of its imports exceeds 25 percent of total exports. Peasant farmer organizations have criticized the definition as ludicrous in an oil-producing country that nonetheless has seen serious erosion in its capacity to feed its people and guarantee access to basic foods for all. The corporate takeover of Mexico’s food system has led to the food and health catastrophe. Transnational food corporations not only import freely into Mexican food markets, they are now the producers, exporters, and importers all in one, operating inside the country. Since NAFTA, corporations have gobbled up human and natural resources on an almost unbelievable scale. Livestock production has moved from small farms for local markets to Tyson, Smithfield, and Pilgrims Pride. The massive use and contamination of water and land has led to health and environmental disasters across the country. Millions of jobs have been lost to concentration and industrialized farming methods. Take the case of Corn Products International (CPI). The transnational filed a NAFTA claim against the Mexican government in 2003, claiming a loss to its business due to a tax levied on high fructose corn syrup in beverages. Mexico’s reason for imposing the tax was to save a sugarcane industry that provided jobs for thousands of citizens and played a crucial economic role in many regions. The government was also frustrated by its failure under NAFTA to access the highly protected U.S. sugar market. A 2008 NAFTA tribunal ruled that Mexico had to pay $58.4 million to CPI. The government paid up on January 25, 2011. CPI posted $3.7 billion dollars in net sales the year of the decision. The fine paid by the Mexican government could have provided a year’s worth of the basic food basket to more than 50,000 poor families. CPI’s wholly owned subsidiary Arancia Corn Products is among the most powerful food transnationals operating in the country, along with Maseca/Archers Daniel Midland and Cargill. Large agribusiness companies allegedly played a key role in the 2007 tortilla crisis by hoarding harvest as the international price went up, artificially drying up the national market and selling at nearly double the price they paid for the harvest. That crisis brought tens of thousands of poor Mexicans out into the streets to protest a 50 percent rise in the price of tortillas. NAFTA and other FTAs give corporations the power to define what we eat, what we buy at the store, who will have a job and who won’t, and whether a village sustained by local food production will survive or witness the end of generations of livelihoods.
- The potential collapse of the Nafta economic bloc could have a huge global impact, Mexican officials have warned, as they prepare to fall back on World Trade Organisation rules amid fears Washington could torpedo the global trade body.https://www.ft.com/content/83b58b3e-e999-11e6-893c-082c54a7f539
- Monterrey is Mexico’s Nafta powerhouse, home to US companies such as Caterpillar and Navistar. Every highway leaving the city of 1.3m leads to wind-whipped industrial parks. A quarter of the economy of surrounding Nuevo Leon state is manufacturing and, just a two-hour drive from Texas, Monterrey is emblematic of what Nafta is — or might become, if Mr Trump ends the trade deal and its $580bn a year of bilateral trade. https://www.ft.com/content/0dbe83e4-e9e5-11e6-967b-c88452263daf
- https://www.ft.com/content/ebb7605e-2c1a-11e7-9ec8-168383da43b7 Mexico is urging Donald Trump to reuse agreements reached under the aborted Trans-Pacific Partnership to create a manufacturing powerhouse between the US, Mexico and Canada to compete with low-cost producers in China.
- https://www.ft.com/content/01d10fbe-5cf6-11e7-9bc8-8055f264aa8b Mexico’s government is being urged to push for an ambitious upgrade of the North American Free Trade Agreement ahead of a meeting between Presidents Donald Trump and Enrique Peña Nieto at this week’s G20 summit in Hamburg. Any Nafta 2.0 should position Mexico as the export platform for a North American bloc in which not only manufacturing but also energy, transport and infrastructure are integrated to boost competitiveness with Asia and Europe, said Luis de la Calle, one of the negotiators of the landmark 1994 accord between the US, Mexico and Canada.
- "We are also analyzing a scenario with no NAFTA," Guajardo said. In an interview published earlier on Tuesday in Mexican business daily El Economista, Guajardo said "there is a risk, and it's high" that the Trump administration abandons NAFTA. Responding to Guajardo's comments, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his government would continue to work "seriously" to improve NAFTA. Earlier this month, Guajardo told Reuters a "Plan B" meant being prepared to replace items such as some of the billions of dollars in grain Mexico imports from the United States annually. To that end, and to seek openings in more markets, Mexico is hosting trade talks with Brazil this week. Trade officials are also discussing a possible replacement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade pact that Trump ditched after taking office. Overlapping with the NAFTA talks, Mexico will participate in separate trade meetings with Australia and New Zealand in Peru, and President Enrique Pena Nieto travels to China this weekend. http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/trump-mexico-nafta-1.4268307
Luxembourg
- A South American farming company backed by investors including George Soros aims to sell grain to Mexico as it capitalises on the country’s deteriorating trade relations with the US since Donald Trump’s arrival as president. New York-listed Adecoagro harvests nearly 2m tonnes of crops a year from farms in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Mariano Bosch, chief executive, said his commercial team was now seeking deals to sell rice, corn and dairy products to Mexico. “Mexico may become an important market for us if Trump continues having problems with Mexico,” Mr Bosch told the Financial Times. “We see an opportunity to enter into that market.” Adecoagro’s crops would compete with shipments handled by US-based agricultural merchants such as Archer Daniels Midland, Bartlett Grain, Cargill and CHS. Open trade and a short southbound haul on railway lines currently give American grain supplies a formidable edge in the Mexican market. https://www.ft.com/content/6da964a8-ebd5-11e6-930f-061b01e23655
- Mexico is proposing to limit access to government contracts for U.S. firms in a sign that America’s NAFTA partners are willing to strike back against what they see as the hardline proposals by the Trump administration. Mexican negotiators are seeking to cap the value of procurement-tenders awarded to American companies to the same amount that Mexican firms get in the U.S. Since American firms do more procurement business in Mexico than vice versa, it would mean less business for U.S. companies, said a person familiar with discussions, who spoke on condition of anonymity. While there were some signs of progress on lower-level issues that sparked a rally in the peso Tuesday, the contracts counter-proposal underscores the magnitude of the differences between the sides on many major sticking points. The U.S. had earlier proposed curbing Mexico’s and Canada’s access to its government projects. http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/nafta-talks-said-to-take-tit-for-tat-turn-as-mexico-counters
- ft 29aug18 "pact boost mexican optimism"
- ft 4oct18 mexico upbeat us-canada agreement on revised nafta
- https://www.ft.com/content/4d6e634a-6c67-11e9-80c7-60ee53e6681d Mexico will be unable to ratify a new North American trade deal unless the US scraps the steel and aluminium tariffs it imposed last year, the country’s top North American trade official has said. Without removal of tariffs “it may be inevitable to delay” ratification of an accord that would replace the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, said Jesús Seade, North America undersecretary at the Mexican foreign ministry and a veteran trade negotiator. “Sentiment is very strong in our Senate on steel,” he said. Mr Seade will meet US trade tsar Robert Lighthizer in Washington on Thursday and Friday, as they seek to resolve an impasse that threatens to shelve the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement for months or even years.
- car industry
- mexico makes about 4% of world's cars and 20% of those made in nafta area
- Asian manufacturers could find it harder to sell their products in American markets under a new deal signed by the United States, Mexico and Canada, and could risk long-term isolation in key industries, analysts say. “In the long term, as long as the supply chains are shifting towards North America, it will be harder for countries elsewhere to break into the North American market,” said Henry Gao, a professor of trade policy at Singapore Management University. Under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) tighter country of origin rules and labour standards for the car and garment manufacturing industries mean production of those products could shift back to North America, which would be a blow to Asian producers.The deal, announced on Monday, includes tougher rules stipulating that raw materials used in garment manufacturing, such as sewing thread, must be sourced from suppliers in one of the three signatory countries. “[The rules] are likely to limit the ability of Vietnamese companies to fill demand for inputs in the textiles sector,” said Maxfield Brown, head Dezan Shira’s Business Intelligence Unit for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.Vietnam exported about US$60 million worth of sewing thread, pocketing fabric, narrow elastic bands and coated fabric to the three nations last year, according to figures from Dezan Shira.
The USMCA also states that 40 to 45 per cent of the all car parts bought by the signatory nations must have been produced by workers making at least US$16 an hour.
china
- scmp 3oct18 new trump trade pact poses threat to china
currency devaluation
- scmp 5oct18 us mexico and canada target unfair devaluation
agribusiness
- Corn is the biggest of the US’s $17.7bn in agricultural exports to Mexico, a value that has risen fivefold since the countries signed the North American Free Trade Agreement. Mexico’s exports to the US have grown even faster to $21bn, led by fruits and vegetables such as lemons and avocados.
Farmers, traders and food executives on both sides of the border are therefore paying close attention to Donald Trump. The US president has pledged to revise Nafta, wall off the border and possibly slap Mexican imports with tariffs. Trade in agriculture could end up a casualty.
automobile
- http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/motoring/2017-08/21/content_30897808.htm Auto industry groups from Canada, Mexico and the United States are pushing back against the Trump administration's demand for higher US automotive content in a modernized North American Free Trade Agreement. At talks underway last week in Washington, automaker and parts groups from all three countries were urging negotiators against tighter rules of origin, said Eduardo Solis, president of the Mexican Automotive Industry Association.
Dispute
- http://www.law360.com/articles/123636/cargill-wins-77m-from-mexico-over-nafta-violation Cargill Wins $77M From Mexico Over NAFTA Violation
commentary
- http://www.economist.com/news/americas/21611080-why-americas-two-neighbours-dont-get-along-she-loves-me-she-loves-me-not
- http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21716033-nafta-has-been-disappointment-its-benefits-are-underappreciated-defence
- scmp 24jul17 david dodwell article
- http://economists-pick-research.hktdc.com/business-news/article/Expert-Opinion/From-NAFTA-to-NAFTA-2-0/eo/en/1/1X33GF7K/1X0AFMES.htm
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