North American Free Trade Agreement

Mexico's 2019 budget is unlikely to include money to implement labor reforms called for in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, with officials saying President Andrés Manuel López Obrador's administration cannot allocate funds until legislation enacting those reforms is signed into law.

“Subjecting shipments from Canada and Mexico to a reciprocal threshold would place administrative and cost burdens on small businesses, increase complexity for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and start a global race to lower thresholds – undermining U.S. e-commerce leadership.”

The passage of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the resolution of disputes over steel and aluminum tariffs and ongoing talks with Beijing top the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s 2019 trade agenda, as outlined on Thursday by President and CEO Thomas Donohue.

The Trump administration's negotiating objectives for a U.S.-Japan free trade agreement include weaker investment and dispute settlement language than those included in prior deals, according to former trade officials and other sources.

A coalition of business groups focused on getting the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement through Congress is slated to be launched in the coming weeks, Inside U.S. Trade has learned.

The Mexican Congress failed to meet a Jan. 1 deadline to pass legislation to establish labor reforms called for in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, with a bill introduced last month in the Chamber of Deputies unlikely to be addressed until February.

Lauds “the zero tariffs that were originally achieved for corn wet milled products under NAFTA, as well as the expansion and improvements to critical text concerning sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures, good regulatory practices, customs procedures, and cooperation on biotechnology.”

Ensuring the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement makes its way through Congress is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's top priority in 2019 -- but steel and aluminum tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports remain a major impediment, according to Myron Brilliant, the Chamber's executive vice president and head of international affairs.

The Trump administration will have its hands full in 2019, with new talks slated to begin with Brussels, Tokyo, London and potentially more, as well as the implementation of a revised deal with South Korea. The fate of the U.S.-Mexico -Canada Agreement will also be determined next year by a new Congress.