North American Free Trade Agreement

Several agriculture groups are calling for market access and sanitary and phytosanitary regulation language like that in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement to be included in a U.S.-European Union trade deal, with one suggesting a World Trade Organization challenge could be coming if thorny issues are not ironed out during negotiations.

Mexican legislation to establish labor reforms called for in the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement is unlikely to be passed before a Jan. 1 deadline included in the pact, leaving sources and lawmakers questioning whether the timing of the deal’s entry into force might be impacted.

The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement still has a ways to go before it can garner enough support among Democrats, several lawmakers said on Tuesday, with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) urging the parties to return to the negotiating table.

Ag groups cite CPTPP, EU-Japan deal in warning that U.S. producers could be hurt.

The president could issue a notice of withdrawal from the North American Free Trade Agreement as early as this week, sources familiar with the plans told Inside U.S. Trade.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said she held a “constructive” meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Thursday to discuss the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which she made clear was far from certain to win Democrats' approval.

Mexico, under newly inaugurated President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, is redesigning its list of retaliatory moves in response to the U.S.' Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum, mulling steeper tariffs on politically salient products aimed at catching the attention of the 116th Congress, according to sources and press reports.

A new footnote in the labor chapter of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement could provide a loophole for the U.S. to escape obligations in the deal's workplace discrimination provisions, sources said.

Even as U.S. industry groups applauded the signing of the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on Friday, they made clear their continued frustration that Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum imports remained.