As the U.S. tightens trade and investment restrictions with respect to China and invests in developing critical sectors such as semiconductors, electric vehicles (EVs), and clean energy, deeper cooperation between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico under the United-States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) is needed. The USMCA gives businesses and traders certainty about the economic relationship between the three countries, and the long history of their cooperation should make North America the key economic platform for a more competitive and dynamic economy that is best placed to reduce exposure to Chinese supply chains and compete globally. However, in order for this to happen, USMCA countries need to work together to address the gaps that have opened between U.S. trade and investment restrictions on China and Mexico and Canada’s trade and investment settings. Going forward, the U.S. should coordinate more closely with Canada and Mexico on any new trade and investment restrictions applied to China. The fact is that for the U.S. to effectively de-risk its economic relationship with China, a more coordinated North America approach is required. Failure to build a cohesive North American approach will likely lead to the U.S. adopting a more go-it-alone, less effective approach when it comes to China, and would be a missed opportunity to further strengthen North American economic relations.

The economic importance of North America

Trade and investment across North America underpinned by the USMCA is the most important economic relationship for the US, Mexico and Canada. Over $1.8 trillion dollars in annual trade happens between these three countries, accounting for approximately 17 million jobs. Around 75% of Canada’s exports and 78% of Mexico’s exports are to the U.S., and around 33% of U.S. exports go to Canada and Mexico. As a result, North America is a geography of deeply interconnected supply chains, particularly in automotive, but also medical equipment, IT products, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and more.

De-risking the US economic relationship with China

The U.S. goal of reducing its economic interdependence with China—so-called de-risking—is a key focus for the U.S. that will likely only intensify. To this end, the U.S. has adopted a range of trade and investment restrictions on China. These include tightened inbound investment screening, new requirements on U.S. investors to notify the U.S. Treasury Department about investment into China into particular sectors, export controls that include restrictions on access to U.S. technology used to produce high-end semiconductors, and tariffs. Recently, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) completed its Section 301 review of the U.S.-China tariffs which led the Biden administration to increase tariffs on $18 billion of imports from China, which included increased tariffs on semiconductors, 100% tariffs on EVs, and higher tariffs on EV batteries, to name a few.

A new North American approach to China?

While the U.S. has been working to restrict trade and investment with China, Canada and Mexico have not taken similar measures. For instance, Mexico does not have an inbound investment screening regime and Canadian and Mexican tariffs on Chinese imports are in many cases significantly lower than U.S. tariffs. These differences in trade policy toward China is increasingly in tension—economically and politically—with the very open trade economic relationship under USMCA. The central issue is that U.S. action to reduce Chinese access to its markets and technologies can be undermined should China increase trade and investment with Mexico and Canada in order to enter the U.S. market while avoiding U.S. trade and investment restrictions. For example, exports from Mexico of EVs from facilities owned by Chinese EV maker BYD could enter the U.S. under USMCA and pay zero tariffs if it meets the agreement’s rules of origin, regional steel and wage rate requirements, and could also benefit from the $7500 IRA tax credit for EVs assembled in North America. Alternatively, BYD could still export EVs to the U.S. from Mexico and pay the WTO MFN rate of 2.5% for automotive imports, compared to the 100% tariff rate the U.S. would apply to imports of EVs directly from China.

Developing a North American EV sector should be the goal for all USMCA parties, leveraging the already deep automotive supply chains. For instance, in 2022, over 50% of Mexico’s imports of parts and accessories for motor vehicles came from the U.S. Accelerating the mining of critical minerals in Canada and Mexico, expanding refining capacity, and building battery manufacturing will also be needed.

Yet to ensure that the U.S. continues to see EVs (as one example) as an industry that should be built out across North America, gaps in economic policy toward China between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico need to be addressed. In the case of EVs, this could include Mexico adopting an inbound investment screening regime and Mexico and Canada adopting tariffs similar to the U.S.’s on EVs from China.

Some progress under USMCA

Thankfully, it does appear that closer cooperation on China is starting to come into focus for the three governments. At the fourth annual meeting of the USMCA Free Trade Commission (FTC) on May 22 led by USTR Ambassador Katherine Tai, Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng, and Mexican Secretary of Economy Raquel Buenrostro, how North America can cooperate more effectively to address the China challenge was a consistent theme.

For example, the parties agreed to “jointly expand their collaboration on issues related to non-market policies and practices of other countries, which undermine the Agreement and harm U.S., Canadian, and Mexican workers, including in the automotive and other sectors.” The nonmarket economy of most concern is China, and responding to China’s trade practices and broader global impact of its economic model will be key to ensuring that the investment by the U.S., Canada, and Mexico into their EV sectors are not undermined by imports of heavily subsidized EVs and components from China.

Another area of cooperation identified in this FTC meeting was building on a previous agreement by the three governments to develop better ways to cooperatively respond to emergency situations that impact trade flows. During COVID-19, a lack of coordination led initially to trade across North America shutting down. Strengthening processes for cooperation across North America can help each government respond to future pandemics and other emergency disruptions to trade, including those caused by rising tensions with China. The underlying point here is the opportunity and need for North American cooperation in order to strengthen collective economic security.

A third area of focus in this FTC meeting was agreement to do more together to prevent imports of goods produced with forced labor. This is a commitment that all parties have made under the USMCA. The main focus here for the U.S. has been preventing imports of goods from the Xinjiang region made using Uighur labor, and the U.S. has legislation that addresses this specifically. However, much work remains to be done, including increased transparency into supply chains. North American cooperation on these labor issues would send a strong signal about shared values in North America around slave labor and labor rights more broadly.

Recommendations

Deepening cooperation among the U.S., Mexico, and Canada when it comes to China is needed to ensure that the USMCA and the open trade and investment regime it enables is supportive of intensifying economic competition with China. Failure to cooperate more deeply on how to respond to China risks the U.S. adopting a more go-it-alone approach. The outcomes from the recent USMCA FTC meeting are a good step toward deeper cooperation on China, however a more comprehensive approach is needed. This could start with the three governments working together, along with industry and other stakeholders, in reviewing their economic policies toward China, identifying where differences in economic policy create risks of Chinese goods entering each of their markets through one of the other partner markets, particularly in sectors deemed critical from a national security and economic security perspective. Assessing what could then be done to plug these gaps would help to develop a more coordinated approach to North American economic policies concerning China. Making progress here would strengthen North America as an economic unit and underscore for the U.S. that its economic well-being and strategic goals are best achieved by working within North America, rather than going it alone.

Joshua P. Meltzer is a senior fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution.

To read the full commentary as it was published by the Brookings Institution, click here.

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So Trump pressured Mexico and Canada to replace their mutual pact with one more to his liking. After a couple of years of negotiations, he got what he wanted. Out was the North American Free Trade Agreement. In was the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

The USMCA, which Trump hailed as “the fairest, most balanced and beneficial trade agreement we have ever signed,” will reach its third anniversary Saturday.

The trade pact hasn’t proved to be the economic bonanza Trump boasted it would be. It couldn’t have been, given that trade makes up less than a third of America’s $26 trillion economy.

Yet while the the deal’s overall impact has been slight, it has nevertheless been helping workers on the ground. It’s just that the beneficiaries have so far been mostly in Mexico. Novel provisions of the pact have enhanced the ability of long-exploited Mexican workers to form unions and secure better wages and working conditions.

Trade officials and experts predict, though, that the benefits will also flow, in time, to U.S. workers, who no longer must compete with severely underpaid Mexican laborers without real bargaining power.

“U.S. workers win when workers in other countries have the same rights,’’ said Cathy Feingold, director of the AFL-CIO’s international department.

Thea Lee, a deputy undersecretary at the U.S. Labor Department, suggested that the pact and Mexico’s reforms haven’t been around long enough to yield measurable help to American workers yet. “We’re going to see the positive results first for Mexican workers because Mexico is undergoing a massive, comprehensive, ambitious labor market reform,” she said.

In some ways, the USMCA as a whole has fallen short of Trump’s promises.

Take the trade deficit with Mexico. Despite Trump’s insistence that the USMCA would pull more manufacturing back to the United States, the gap between what America sells and what it buys from Mexico keeps widening: It has surged from the $64 billion gap in 2016 that so irritated Trump to a record $139 billion last year.

The former president also predicted that exports of U.S. auto parts to Mexico would rise by $23 billion. They have increased since 2020 — but only by about $8 billion.

“I don’t expect that we’re ever going to be able to say that (the USMCA) accomplished very much,’’ said Alan Dierdorff, a professor emeritus of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan. “I don’t think it hurt much. But I don’t think it helped much.’’

Trump said the pact would create 76,000 auto industry jobs. Since January 2020, vehicle and parts manufacturers have actually added nearly 90,000 jobs. And North American commerce has flourished. America’s trade with Canada and Mexico — exports plus imports — reached a record $1.78 trillion last year. That was up 27% from 2019 and was above a 20% gain in trade with China over the same period.

But it’s hard to tease out which economic gains can be credited to the USMCA and which happened for a variety of unrelated reasons. That is especially true in light of the unusual economic tumult of the past three years: A devastating pandemic, followed by severe labor shortages and supply chain backlogs and a resurgence of rampant inflation.

Also complicating any effort to calculate the USMCA’s impact is President Joe Biden’s own aggressive efforts to rejuvenate American industry with trillions of dollars in infrastructure spending and subsidies.

For all of Trump’s bombast, the USMCA actually left in place much of the pact it replaced. NAFTA erased most of the import taxes that the United States, Mexico and Canada imposed on each other’s goods. It created a duty-free regional bloc meant to compete with the European Union and China. That structure remains mostly in place.

“It’s still pretty much the same as NAFTA,” Dierdorff said.

Still, some substantive changes have occurred. When NAFTA took effect in 1994, for instance, the internet, e-commerce and smartphones weren’t part of everyday business. The new pact updated North American trade rules for the digital age.

The USMCA, for instance, bars the United States, Mexico and Canada from hitting each other with import taxes on music, software, games and other products sold electronically; allows the cross-border use of electronic signatures and authentication; and protects companies from having to disclose in-house source codes and algorithms.

Given how it modernized North American trade, the “USMCA is a marked improvement,’’ said Neil Herrington, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s senior vice president for the Americas.

Perhaps the most consequential changes the pact wrought were designed to reverse one of NAFTA’s unhappy byproducts for Americans: The old deal incentivized companies to close factories in the United States, ship production to lower-wage Mexico, then export goods back into the United States — duty free.

The USMCA sought to make it harder for autos and auto parts to enjoy tariff-free treatment. To qualify, 75% of a car and its parts had to come from North America, up from bodog poker review 62.5% under NAFTA. That meant more content had to come from higher-wage North American workers, not imported cheaply from China or elsewhere. And at least 40% of vehicles would have to originate in places where workers earn at least $16 an hour — that is, the United States and Canada, not Mexico.

But those so-called automotive rules of origin stumbled out of the gate. Enforcement was delayed as customs officials faced supply chain backlogs at the height of the COVID crisis.

“Border officials were worried about clearing cargo in ports and getting rid of congestion,’’ said Daniel Ujczo, senior counsel at the law firm Thompson Hine in Columbus, Ohio. “They didn’t have a ton of time to deal with USMCA.’’’

Even after the auto rules took effect, the United States was slapped down for the way it tried to enforce them. A USMCA trade court, in a case brought by Mexico and Canada, found that Washington was applying the rules more strictly than was allowed.

The United States has achieved more success in using the deal to pressure Mexican employers to comply with their country’s labor reforms. Workers there can now vote freely and fairly on joining unions, approving contracts and choosing union leaders. In the past, pro-company unions in Mexico signed contracts behind workers’ backs. Strikes were rare, wages stayed low and union leaders got rich.

The USMCA armed the United States, Mexican workers and union activists with a new weapon: The “Rapid Response Labor Mechanism.” This allows the U.S. government to crack down on individual factories in Mexico — by, for example, suspending tariff exemptions for their products – if they violate Mexican labor law.

“We took a lot of the key parts of (Mexico’s) labor reform, and we baked them directly into the trade agreement,’’ said Josh Kagan, assistant U.S. trade representative for labor affairs. “We’re holding Mexico to actually implement this labor reform they’ve undertaken.’’

So far, the United States has used the mechanism 11 times to demand corrections of labor law violations. Mexico has so far cooperated, by sending law enforcement and labor inspectors to guard ballot boxes in new votes that independent unions have mostly won.

Under pressure from a U.S. complaint, Mexican officials and observers oversaw a union vote in which the old union was thrown out. The new union won the right to negotiate — and an 8.5% wage increase, plus bonuses.

“If workers had tried a similar organizing effort before, “they would have fired us immediately,” said Manuel Carpio, who works at a General Motors plant in Silao, in the state of Guanajuato.

Still, it isn’t a perfect process, said Julia Quiñonez, who organized an independent union at a U.S.-owned auto parts plant, VU Manufacturing, in the city of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, across from Eagle Pass, Texas. The old union joined with the company to try to bar the new union. The two sides are still struggling.

“We have heard about other cases where the companies have respected the process and agreed to corrective plans,” Quiñonez said. “But the VU case has been plagued by a lot of deceit, corruption and frustration.’’

One problem, Quiñonez said, is that cases tend to be kicked back to the same Mexican courts and authorities that should have enforced the law in the first place.

“The obstacles we are facing are the normal resistance you might expect in a system that has been operating for at least 80 years,” she said.

The worker provisions in the USMCA were strengthened in negotiations between Trump’s trade team and congressional Democrats. Working on those talks was Katherine Tai, then the chief trade counsel on the House Ways and Means Committee and now Biden’s top trade negotiator.

The Biden administration says it views the worker provisions in the USMCA as a model for future trade deals that seek to benefit workers, not just companies that want to expand their exports.

“I don’t think anybody knew how the Rapid Response Mechanism process would play out,’’ the Labor Department’s Lee said. “But people have found that it’s working as anticipated and as hoped.’’

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If you’re unsure how essential exporting is to our economy, consider the facts:

• Businesses that export are less likely to go out of business, record higher revenues, create more jobs, and pay higher wages than those that don’t.
• An average of 12% of the U.S. economy has consisted of exports every year for the past decade.
• The U.S. only accounts for 4% of the world’s population, which means there are plenty of markets and customers to explore.

We previously looked at the unusual export and import trends of 2020 and for 2021 will be issuing monthly updates to help us understand the economy’s performance. 2019 is also an important year for us to study, as it provides a baseline for us to understand the profile of U.S. exporters before the pandemic hit.

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From mattresses to ice cream to financial services, the U.S. exports a huge variety of goods and services from every sector.

The United States. is globally competitive in many manufactured products. Aircraft, cars and parts, and semiconductors are our largest manufactured goods exports. Other key exports are agricultural products, with 20-25% of all food grown in the U.S. exported, and oil. Just as impressive are U.S. service exports like travel, business services, research, and intellectual property. We are the single largest exporter of services in the world; 14% of all global services exports originate here. Prior to the pandemic, U.S. travel and tourism averaged roughly $200 billion per year, and product R&D and intellectual property licensing combined averaged $144 billion per year.

What countries receive the most U.S. exports?

The largest destination for U.S. goods and services exports are Mexico and Canada, our neighbors and free trade partners in the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA). China, the United Kingdom and Japan also account for large shares of U.S. exports. Combined, these trade partners accounted for 43% of U.S. exports in 2019.

Where are U.S. exporters?

Exporters come from every pocket and community in the United States. Each state exports a variety of goods and greatly contributes to the diversity of American exports. For example:

• Texas is a center of oil and chemical production.
• California’s tech industry and orchards are world leaders.
• New York is a global hub for precious metals.
• Washington is a center of aircraft manufacturing.

Exporting is not just a game for the biggest states, though. Per person, South Carolina, Delaware, and Puerto Rico each export more goods than California.

What about U.S. small business exports?

Small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of the U.S. economy: they create two-thirds of net new jobs and account for more than 40% of the U.S. economy. 97.4% of all goods exporters are SMEs. By export value, large exporters make up two-thirds of goods exports ($996 billion), while SMEs make up the remaining third ($460 billion).

What jobs are supported by exports?

U.S. exporters directly support U.S. jobs. According to ITA’s research, goods and services exports supported about 10.7 million jobs in 2019. Each $1 billion of exports supports about 5,095 jobs. Additionally, export-intensive industries pay more, on average, than those that sell mostly domestically. Workers employed in manufacturing industries that export earn 19% more  than their peers who work in manufacturing industries that don’t export. 

Trade with Mexico and Canada (through USMCA) and Asia support the most goods-related jobs, and trade with Europe supports the most services jobs. More manufacturing jobs are supported by the U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade zone than by any other region.

To read the original blog by Tradeology, please click here.

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Over the past several years, so the story goes, the free and open, multi-stakeholder-governed internet has been undermined by self-interested states, led by China and Russia, who wish to control the internet within their borders. Making things worse is that these countries are exporting their censorship- and surveillance-laden “digital authoritarianism” to democratic countries, risking the destruction of the global internet. This trend toward a “splinternet,” following this line of logic, has risen exponentially with the United States’ early August decision to effectively outlaw TikTok and WeChat in the United States, and its announcement of plans for a “clean network” devoid of Chinese connections or companies such as Huawei. This final straw could lead, we are told, to “the end of cyberspace” itself.

In this story, parochial, authoritarian-tinged states are to blame for ruining the beauty of a truly global network.

This narrative may be useful for legitimizing the current internet governance framework, but there exists another way to understand these internet upheavals, one that will be familiar to long-standing observers of North American regional politics. It involves understanding the internet as having always been an American — not global — network, defined by and for American interests. Multi-stakeholder governance has always existed within these limits. When US perceptions of its interests change, so will the network.

This dynamic exists because, in North America, and with respect to the internet, the United States is a hegemonic power, with the ability and desire to shape regulations in ways that reflect its views, values and interests.

The late, great Canadian political scientist Stephen Clarkson was as astute an observer of North American relations as the country has ever produced. One of his starting points, elaborated nicely in this 2002 Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives paper, was that the United States, as the regional hegemon, was capable of unilaterally defining and redefining the overall context within which its neighbours, Mexico and Canada, operated. The two smaller countries have significant room to manoeuvre within this context, and are able to influence some of the rules, but the overall direction is set by Washington.

The United States has unilaterally altered the foundations of North American governance twice since the 1994 implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The first was after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when the United States unilaterally altered the continental covenant to reflect a newfound (and borderline paranoid) interest in raising barriers to entry to the American “homeland” (a term that entered the US political lexicon at about that time).

The second involved replacing NAFTA, at the insistence of US President Donald Trump, with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (the USMCA, or CUSMA, as Canadians know it). The conventional wisdom holds that the new agreement is mostly just NAFTA by another name, but this assessment downplays the magnitude of the changes to North American governance. The inclusion, in Article 34.7, of a sunset clause and mandates for regular reviews signals that North America is entering an imperial phase, in which Washington will have a much greater ability to influence its neighbours’ domestic policies, through the omnipresent threat of removing preferential access to the US market. The USMCA also gives Washington more power to influence its partners’ monetary policy and determine with whom they may sign trade agreements.

Both the development of internet governance — in particular, the emphasis on “internet freedom” as maximized interconnection and interoperability — and the seriousness with which people are taking the US administration’s TikTok/WeChat/Huawei pronouncements — are examples of US hegemony in action. Several scholars have pointed out that both multi-stakeholder governance and “internet freedom” reflect US values and interests. As Madeline Carr notes in her book US Power and the Internet in International Relations: The Irony of the Information Age, the internet’s multi-stakeholder governance is dominated by American companies and actors. Echoing her, Shawn Powers and Michael Jablonski’s book The Real Cyber War: The Political Economy of Internet Freedom, highlights how “internet freedom” fits squarely within a century-old American policy designed to promote the dominance of American companies through easy access to foreign markets, in this case via a thoroughly commercialized internet – a point that I also develop in a further article with Jablonski. From this perspective, multi-stakeholder governance is underwritten by and inseparable from American hegemony. Actors can exert influence via multi-stakeholder governance, but they have to colour within the lines

The essence of hegemony is the ability of the hegemon to change the rules when it so desires. American internet hegemony has both similarities to and differences from American hegemony generally in North America. The unchangeable fact of their geographic locations means that Canada and Mexico have little choice but to follow US flights of fancy in most matters. In contrast, US global internet hegemony has always been somewhat weaker and more contingent. For example, as Dwayne Winseck has observed, “ownership and control of core elements of the global internet infrastructure such as the fibre optic submarine cables, autonomous system numbers (ASN) and the internet exchange points (IXP) that constitute the guts of the internet, is steadily tilting [away from the United States and] toward the rest of the world, especially Europe and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa).”. Resistance to and even exit from policy areas dominated by the United States are more Bodog Poker plausible for countries – particularly large countries like China – that are less tied to the United States than its two neighbours.

While China and Russia are challengers, it is the hegemon that has the most say over the internet’s overall shape. That US actions against TikTok and WeChat are being touted as game-changers suggests that analysts believe that the United States is, indeed, a hegemon. To the extent that the internet becomes the “splinternet,” it will not be because authoritarian challenger states have tried to seize power over the internet, but because the one state that has largely underwritten the entire project has decided that an internet based on its very self-interested version of “internet freedom” and maximized interconnection is no longer in its interest. When the hegemonic power decides that the rules change, they change.

The irony is that these recent US actions are likely to diminish, not increase, US internet hegemony and power. Hegemony is driven by interdependence, the creation of indispensable connections with the hegemonic power at the heart of the deal. By attempting to sever all ties with China, the United States is not only creating a more splintered internet. It effectively is putting China, and likely many other countries, outside its sphere of influence. Donald Trump’s expression of pure power may turn out to be the internet hegemon’s final gasp.

The opinions expressed in this article/multimedia are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of CIGI or its Board of Directors.

Blayne Haggart is a CIGI senior fellow and associate professor of political science at Brock University in St. Catharines, Canada. Blayne is also a senior associate fellow with the Käte Hamburger Kolleg/Centre for Global Cooperation Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. His research focuses on the global political economy of data and intellectual property, online platforms, internet governance, and North American economic governance. 

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Who can quibble with the desire to raise up hard-working Americans, many of whom did not start from backgrounds of privilege? But Trump’s trade policies reflect no such objective and may well have the opposite effect. In his effort to retrofit Trump’s policy to this stated aim, Lighthizer has produced an essay that is factually inaccurate, intellectually incomplete, and internally inconsistent.

THE DIGNITY OF WORK

Lighthizer argues that Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum in 2018 to dignify the work of Americans who make metals. The claim is revisionist history. At the time, the administration insisted that the tariffs were necessary to shore up U.S. military defenses. The administration invoked Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, the part of U.S. trade law tasked with safeguarding national security—and it did so despite the fact that the United States imported steel and aluminum mainly from allies, such as Canada, Japan, and the European Union.

American workers, for their part, mostly opposed the policy. Trump put duties on Canada—the source of more than 25 percent of U.S. steel and aluminum imports—and the United Steelworkers union complained that “the Administration’s trade policies have led to confusion, higher trade deficits and no real success in changing the practices of our trading partners.” A handful of steel companies may have benefited from the resulting rise in steel prices, but some two million other Americans who depend on steel for their jobs found themselves reliant on a product that was suddenly more expensive. The economists Lydia Cox and Kadee Russ have estimated that 80 Americans work in industries that use steel for every one American who is employed in producing it.

The dignity of the American worker was hardly served when the high cost of metals, together with foreign retaliation for Trump’s tariffs, pushed some blue-collar U.S. jobs overseas. On account of Trump’s trade policy, Harley Davidson ceased making the motorcycles it sells in Europe in the United States. U.S. expenses were too high: hogs destined for the autobahn had to be built in Thailand instead.

The administration set up an opaque process by which desperate U.S. businesses had to hire Washington trade lawyers in order to beg for products to be excluded from Trump’s sweeping duties. The mechanism was rife with the potential for corruption. Businesses filed tens of thousands of requests, of which Trump officials granted fewer than half, leading the Commerce Department’s own Inspector General to warn in 2019 of “the appearance of improper influence.” Denied exclusions, American businesses manufacturing such objects as steel nails, car bumpers, and beer kegs bore the brunt of the rising costs. In January 2020, the president recognized the negative impact of his policies and extended even more protection—now shielding metal-using American companies from foreign competition, too.

Trump’s trade war also took a toll on the dignity of American farmers. China levied retaliatory tariffs on U.S. agricultural goods that cost Midwestern soybean farmers a combined $6.7 billion in lower export sales over 2018 and 2019, as compared to 2017. The farmers were forced to accept a federal bailout. Many remain skeptical that they will ever regain their foreign markets.

A growing number of economic studies conclude that Trump’s trade policy has been costly for American businesses, workers, and farmers. Overall, the U.S. economy performed worse because of the tariffs. By imposing them, Trump and Lighthizer made a choice not to support working Americans but to pit them against one another.

COUNTERING OR CONVERGING WITH CHINA

Lighthizer legitimately identifies “market-distorting state capitalism in China” as one of the “most significant trade challenges” facing the United States. Since 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping has pushed to enlarge the role of the state in the Chinese economy, including with the “Made in China 2025” industrial policy he rolled out in 2015. These policies can create conditions under which American companies and workers are unable to compete fairly. But Lighthizer errs in accusing the administrations of Barack Obama and George W. Bush of doing nothing to counter them.

Prior U.S. administrations had adopted a three-pronged approach to confront Chinese policies. They deployed special tariffs that already covered more than seven percent of U.S. imports from China even before Trump assumed office in 2017. At the same time, through the WTO, they filed nearly two dozen disputes against China, including six in quick succession once Chinese policy turned in 2015. Washington often brought Canada, Japan, and the European Union into those disputes in order to put China on notice that it risked access to nearly 60 percent of the global economy outside its borders. Finally, the Obama administration negotiated a new trade agreement with 11 countries called the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which prioritized the role of markets. And because the TPP had benefits that would accrue only to its members, Beijing would someday want to get in—but doing so would require China to cut back on state capitalism.

In contrast to his predecessors, Trump chose a one-pronged, unilateral approach. He withdrew the United States from the TPP. He ignored China at the WTO. His administration turned almost exclusively to tariffs. And it went after China alone.

In explaining this strategy to the American public, the Trump administration accused Beijing of intellectual property theft. That charge formed the legal basis for the trade war and provided Trump the unfettered authority to impose tariffs on China whenever he wanted, on whatever products he wanted, for as long as he wanted, and at rates as high as he wanted. And Trump had wanted tariffs from day one. As Axios reported in August 2017, Trump said of his trade team, “For the last six months, this same group of geniuses comes in here all the time and I tell them, ‘Tariffs. I want tariffs.’ And what do they do? They bring me IP. I can’t put a tariff on IP.” The administration was disingenuous to claim that the purpose of the trade war was to protect U.S. intellectual property. The tariffs were designed to increase business costs and make American companies uncertain about the profitability of investing in China in order to export back to the U.S. market.

Now, high tariffs have become the new normal. Before the trade war, U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods averaged only three percent, and China’s duties on U.S. goods were only eight percent. In January, Trump signed his Phase 1 agreement with Beijing, which cements into place U.S. and Chinese tariffs averaging nearly 20 percent, a remarkable increase in less than two years. Under the agreement, according to Lighthizer, China has made “purchasing commitments that will create long-term market access for U.S. exporters.” But such access seems unlikely so long as Beijing’s tariffs remain in place.

Far from tackling the problem of “market-distorting state capitalism,” the Trump administration is asking Beijing to double down on the approach. For instance, under the Phase 1 deal, the administration expects to export substantially more Iowa soybeans, Maine lobsters, and other goods to China than it did in 2017—transactions that will make sense only if China’s state takes on an even greater role in its economy. That’s because during the trade war, Beijing cut tariffs on imports from the rest of the world even as it raised them on those from the United States. Lighthizer did not negotiate changes to those tariffs, and as a result, the Chinese private sector has little incentive to buy American. To satisfy Trump’s deal, Xi Jinping will need to provide more resources to China’s state-owned enterprises and then direct them to divert sales away from cheaper suppliers in Brazil, Germany, or Japan.

Trump’s Phase 1 agreement runs to 90 pages but remains almost entirely silent on the issue of subsidies and state capitalism. The administration has inflicted the costs of a trade war on the American public—and antagonized economic allies, such as Japan and the European Union, with other tariffs—with precious little progress to show for its pains. Worse, Trump has moved U.S. policy closer to the Chinese model that Lighthizer dislikes so much: Washington has embraced higher tariffs, more subsidies, more calls for industrial policy, and more government direction of economic activity. The United States and China are converging—but toward, rather than away from, the “market-distorting state capitalism” Lighthizer claims to worry about.

SOVEREIGNTY IS A STRAW MAN

Trump has made the WTO a bogeyman. Lighthizer calls it a “litigation society” with “made-up jurisprudence that undermines U.S. sovereignty and threatens American jobs.” He presents no credible evidence that WTO jurisprudence has cost American jobs, because there is none. But he uses this assessment to justify the administration’s decision to kill off the WTO’s Appellate Body, which had adjudicated trade disputes for 25 years.

Prior U.S. administrations deftly used the Appellate Body to manage trade relations, in part by bringing more than 100 disputes against other governments. When it won these disputes, the United States helped convince other countries that their interests lay in setting policy consistent with a rule book that Americans had largely written. Yes, the system also allowed other countries to challenge American policies. And sometimes, the United States “lost.” Earlier administrations and Congress often chose to adjust U.S. policy in response to those decisions. Lighthizer may have found such compromises upsetting, but they were freely chosen: the WTO never forced policy changes upon the U.S. government.

The notion that the WTO undermines U.S. sovereignty is a straw man. The Appellate Body, while it functioned, was apparently unable to stop the Trump administration from lashing out with trade barriers that inflicted costs on itself and its trading partners. But by destroying the WTO’s Appellate Body, Trump hurt Americans. He deprived future U.S. administrations of an instrument for tackling trade grievances without running the risk of a trade war. The Appellate Body’s transparency gave Washington a window onto dealmaking among other countries, such that it didn’t need to fear its exporters’ being squeezed out of third country markets. All of that is now gone, with nothing gained for the loss. Trump did not restore the United States’ sovereignty— it had never been missing in the first place.

TRADE POLICY IS NOT THE ANSWER

Change is a constant for any country exposed to the international economy and the whims of innovation. To weather the economic and technological flux, American workers need access to health care, education, retraining, and a social safety net. Open trade advocates over the last 30 years erred in focusing exclusively on lowering trade barriers and assuming that others would legislate the complementary domestic protections that workers would need. The supporting policies never materialized, and workers were left exposed.

Lighthizer, too, overinflates the importance of trade policy. The Trump administration has failed the American worker, and neither imposing tariffs nor shutting those workers off from the world can compensate.

Lighthizer expresses concern, for example, over the United States’ increasing “deaths of despair,” while the president he serves has persistently tried to take health insurance away from more than 20 million Americans. Lighthizer has rewritten trade rules to benefit a select few autoworkers, while the administration made no effort to increase the federal minimum wage affecting 1.6 million others. (It remains stuck at $7.25 per hour, having fallen bodog casino by five percent in real terms since 2016.) Lighthizer complains about Mexico’s lax labor laws, while Trump’s appointments to the National Labor Relations Board sought to obstruct American workers from unionizing.

Consequently, Lighthizer’s claims that the Trump administration had prioritized the dignity of work may fall on deaf ears. The AFL-CIO, which represents 55 labor unions and more than 12.5 million active and retired workers, has come out with an early endorsement of Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic candidate in the 2020 presidential election, and a promise to campaign against Trump. For policy priorities that really matter to the American workers the AFL-CIO represents, trade policy was simply not the answer.

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How else to explain the dearth of probing inquiry and push back? With a few limited exceptions, the day featured a series of softball questions from lawmakers showing deference to Lighthizer, praising him for focusing on enforcement rather than liberalization in the United States‐​Mexico‐​Canada Agreement, and appearing to be squarely on board with the prosecutorial, mercantilist, zero‐​sum approach that has defined trade policy in the Trump era.

Given the administration’s abrupt U‐​turn from eight decades of trade policy continuity through 13 presidencies and 42 congresses to take actions that have left Americans much less free to trade and that have weakened U.S. standing in the world, the absence of serious questioning and substantive disagreement is, if not an endorsement, a dereliction of duty. The fact that media and others haven’t found newsworthy this congressional acquiescence to the president’s policies or this general comity between the branches may be further confirmation that it’s been, well, an eventful few years. Just consider some of the administration’s deeply controversial trade actions and where they have taken us since 2017.

On his third day in office, President Trump withdrew the United States from the Trans‐​Pacific Partnership—arguably the most important trade agreement in a generation—for the robust reason that the TPP was an accomplishment of the Obama administration.

Over the ensuing two years, Trump imposed new tariffs on close to $400 billion of imports, resulting in a $38 billion tax increase on importers, which was passed down through supply chains, raising costs of production across the manufacturing sector and consumer prices across the country. Of course, those tariffs also invited retaliation from foreign governments against close to $200 billion of U.S. exports, which hit the agricultural sector particularly hard. To try to smooth things over with the farmers, Trump showered them with $28 billion of taxpayer funds and—if John Bolton is to be believed—begged Xi Jinping to buy their soya beans.

Meanwhile, the United States and China have been embroiled in a divorce which began as a trade war but has escalated into a broader process of economic, financial, technological, and cultural decoupling. Whether confronting China as the administration did was a good idea or not, there is no evidence the architects of that approach have—or even considered—a plausible plan for U.S. success in the world, post‐​divorce.

A case in point is that in the midst of the meltdown with China, the administration has gone out of its way to pick fights with as many other countries as possible, hitting allies with national security tariffs on steel and aluminum, threatening similar tariffs on automobiles, allowing (in fact, encouraging) wholesale abuse of the antidumping law to punish foreign (especially Korean) producers, and withdrawing tariff preferences granted to products from poor countries. We should be wooing, not screwing these countries.

The administration has routinely menaced allies and other trade partners with threats of tariff hikes and other economic sanctions to pressure them into caving to Trump’s demands. For example, just days ahead of today’s entry into force of the USMCA, the administration began threatening to re‐​impose tariffs on Canadian aluminum and to file formal complaints against Mexico for alleged non‐​compliance with various terms of the new North American trade deal. Disputes and more disputes mark today’s commencement of the USMCA.

Now, a trade war with Europe over digital taxes, aircraft subsidies, and other matters is looking increasingly likely. Certainly, some of the EU’s policies are problematic and warrant cogent, coherent policy responses, but the Trump administration has gone out of its way to demonize Europe, even calling it a bigger threat to the trading system than China.

The administration’s war of attrition on the World Trade Organization shows no signs of abating. By blocking its capacity to render formal adjudication, failing to participate constructively in the process of debating prospective reforms, and perpetuating myths to foment antipathy ahead of what looked like possible votes in both chambers on the question of U.S. withdrawal from the WTO (until House Speaker Nancy Pelosi invoked a procedural privilege last week to prevent a vote on the subject in this Congress, which could go down as the most, if not the only, pro‐​trade action taken by this Congress), the United States has become an international scofflaw under the Trump administration.

As if picking fights with the rest of the world weren’t enough, the administration continues to flout the powers Congress errantly ceded to the executive branch by abusing trade laws passed with too few conditions attached. The administration has demonstrated contempt for the rule of law in its exercise of authorities under several statutes, as if daring Congress to do something about it. But Congress doesn’t really want to do anything about it because most members are perfectly happy allowing the president to make politically consequential decisions about tariffs, while they remain on the sidelines cheering for the measure if it’s popular, and criticizing it if it’s not. That’s not exactly a profile in courage.

So, what does the administration have to show for all its posturing, chest‐​thumping, and bullying? Approximately zero trade liberalization—no new agreements that meaningfully reduce trade barriers—has been accomplished under this administration. The USMCA may succeed, but that bureaucratic bundle of restrictions and rules was never intended to liberalize trade. It was intended to reduce U.S. imports from Mexico and Canada and to incentivize the repatriation of supply chains. And it will make North America poorer. The mini‐​deal with Japan salvaged a tiny portion of the benefits of the TPP, but on net we are far less free to trade with Japan than would have been the case under TPP. The revisions to the Korea-U.S. (KORUS) free trade agreement, which the administration touts, were so superficial that Congress didn’t even need to sign off on it. What about the U.S-UK and the U.S.-Kenya Free Trade Agreements, you ask? Please. Neither stands a chance of coming to fruition with any meaningful terms during the Trump administration.

Yet, despite all these unorthodox actions (and inactions), which amount to the destruction of trade policy as a tool to promote economic growth and to channel U.S. soft power, Congress couldn’t muster the will to ask why.

At the recent hearings, there were no substantive objections; no challenges of the administration’s logic; no repudiation of the president’s disdainful treatment of allies or the frivolity of his national security tariffs; no queries about the corrupt tariff‐​exemption racket run out of the U.S. Commerce Department; no expressions of concern that the president’s contempt for decorum, his aversion to decency, and his departure from history have come at great expense to the country’s reputation—a public asset that the administration wantonly squandered. There were no eyebrows raised over the administration’s trivializing the rule of law and brazenly asserting the law of the jungle. There were no reprimands for taxing U.S. businesses with tariffs and redistributing the booty to the constituencies more likely to support the president’s reelection. There was only silence; gleeful silence.

The failure of Congress to muster up any genuine resistance to this long list of abusive, destructive executive actions reveals ineptitude, cowardice, and/​or complicity in America’s retreat into protectionism. After all, the administration’s effort to re‐​purpose trade policy from a tool that harnesses economic dynamism and creates opportunities into a shield that aims to protect Americans from the effects of that dynamism, which many congressional Republicans now support, has long been the objective of congressional Democrats.

At long last, that vaunted bipartisanship has returned to Washington in the form of an insular, mean‐​spirited, grievance‐​propelled trade policy. It shouldn’t be surprising that politicians agree that the causes of America’s woes are foreign born. It’s a safe, slam‐​dunk position to take. But it’s also dangerous and wrong and very likely to accelerate the country’s isolation and decline.

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2.  On April 24, 2020, pursuant to authority delegated to the United States Trade Representative (USTR), the USTR submitted to the Congress the written notice required under section 106(a)(1)(G) of the Bipartisan Congressional Trade Priorities and Accountability Act of 2015 (title I of Public Law 114-26, 129 Stat. 319, 350 (19 U.S.C. 4205(a)(1)(G))) and, in accordance with section 101(b) of the USMCA Implementation Act, notified the Congress that the USMCA will enter into force on July 1, 2020.

3.  Section 103(c)(1) of the USMCA Implementation Act authorizes the President to proclaim such modifications or continuation of any duty, such continuation of duty-free or excise treatment, or such additional duties, as the President determines to be necessary or appropriate to carry out or apply articles 2.4, 2.5, 2.7, 2.8, 2.9, 2.10, 6.2, and 6.3, the Schedule of the United States to Annex 2-B, including the appendices to that Annex, Annex 2-C, and Annex 6-A of the USMCA.

4.  Section 103(c)(4) of the USMCA Implementation Act requires the President to take such actions as may be necessary in implementing the tariff-rate quotas set forth in the Schedule of the United States to Annex 2-B of the USMCA to ensure that imports of agricultural goods do not disrupt the orderly marketing of agricultural goods in the United States.

5.  Section 103(c)(5)(A) of the USMCA Implementation Act authorizes the President to proclaim, as part of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTS), the provisions set forth in Annex 4-B; the provisions set forth in paragraph 2 of article 3.A.6 of Annex 3-A; the provisions set forth in paragraph 5 of Annex 3-B; and the provisions set forth in paragraphs 14(b), 14(c), and 15(e) of section B of Appendix 2 to Annex 2-B of the USMCA.

6.  Section 103(c)(5)(A) of the USMCA Implementation Act also authorizes the President to proclaim any additional subordinate category that is necessary to carry out section 202 and section 202A of the USMCA Implementation Act consistent with the USMCA.

7.  Section 103(c)(5)(B) of the USMCA Implementation Act authorizes the President to proclaim modifications to the provisions proclaimed under the authority of section 103(c)(5)(A), subject to the consultation and layover provisions of section 104, as are necessary to implement an agreement under article 6.4 of the USMCA.

8.  Section 105(a) of the USMCA Implementation Act authorizes the President to establish or designate within the Department of Commerce an office to serve as the United States Section of the Secretariat established under article 30.6 of the USMCA.

9.  Section 202 of the USMCA Implementation Act sets forth certain rules for determining whether a good is an originating good for purposes of implementing preferential tariff treatment provided for under the USMCA.  Section 202A of the USMCA Implementation Act sets forth certain rules for determining whether certain automotive goods are originating goods for purposes of implementing preferential tariff treatment provided for under the USMCA.  I have decided that it is necessary to include the rules of origin set forth in sections 202 and 202A of the USMCA Implementation Act in the HTS.

10.  Section 207 of the USMCA Implementation Act authorizes the President to take certain actions relating to trade with Canada and Mexico, including with respect to textile and apparel goods.

11.  Executive Order 11651 of March 3, 1972 (Textile Trade Agreements), as amended, established the Committee for Implementation of Textile Agreements (CITA), consisting of representatives of the Departments of State, the Treasury, Commerce, and Labor, and the Office of the USTR, with the representative of the Department of Commerce as Chairman, to supervise the implementation of textile trade agreements.  Consistent with section 301 of title 3, United States Code, when carrying out functions vested in the President by statute and assigned by the President to the CITA, the officials collectively exercising those functions are all to be officers required to be appointed by the bodog casino President with the advice and consent of the Senate.

12.  Section 324 of the USMCA Implementation Act authorizes the President to take certain actions if the United States International Trade Commission (the “Commission”) finds that United States long-haul trucking services are being, or are threatened with being, materially harmed.

13.  Section 611(a) of the USMCA Implementation Act requires the President to consult with the appropriate congressional committees and stakeholders before each joint review under article 34.7 of the USMCA.

14.  Section 1206(a) of the Omnibus Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988 (the “1988 Act”) (Public Law 100‑418, 102 Stat. 1107, 1151 (19 U.S.C. 3006(a))) authorizes the President to proclaim modifications to the HTS based on the recommendations of the Commission under section 1205 of the 1988 Act (19 U.S.C. 3005) if the President determines that the modifications are in conformity with United States obligations under the International Convention on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System (the “Convention”) and do not run counter to the national economic interest of the United States.

15.  In Proclamation 9549 of December 1, 2016, pursuant to section 1206(a) of the 1988 Act, the President proclaimed modifications to the HTS to conform it to the Convention, to promote the uniform application of the Convention, to establish additional subordinate tariff categories, and to make technical and conforming changes to existing provisions.  These modifications to the HTS were set forth in Annex I of Publication 4653 of the Commission, which was incorporated by reference into the proclamation.

16.  On May 6, 2003, the President entered into the United States-Singapore Free Trade Agreement (the “USSFTA”).  The USSFTA was approved by the Congress in section 101(a) of the United States-Singapore Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act (the “USSFTA Act”) (Public Law 108-78, 117 Stat. 948, 949 (19 U.S.C. 3805 note)).

17.  Proclamation 7747 of December 30, 2003, implemented the USSFTA with respect to the United States and, pursuant to the USSFTA Act, incorporated in the HTS the schedule of duty reductions and rules of origin necessary or appropriate to carry out the USSFTA.

18.  Section 201 of the USSFTA Act authorizes the President to proclaim such modifications or continuation of any duty, such continuation of duty-free or excise treatment, or such additional duties, as the President determines to be necessary or appropriate to carry out or apply articles 2.2, 2.5, 2.6, and 2.12 and Annex 2B (including the schedule of United States duty reductions with respect to originating goods) of the USSFTA.  The United States and Singapore are parties to the Convention.

19.  I have determined that, pursuant to section 201 of the USSFTA Act and section 1206(a) of the 1988 Act, modifications to the HTS are necessary or appropriate to ensure the continuation of tariff and certain other treatment accorded to originating goods under tariff categories modified in Proclamation 9549 and to carry out the duty reductions proclaimed in Proclamation 7747.

20.  On November 22, 2006, the United States entered into the United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement (the “USCTPA”), and on June 28, 2007, the United States and Colombia amended the USCTPA.  The Congress approved the USCTPA, as amended, in section 101(a) of the United States-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement Implementation Act (the “USCTPA Act”) (Public Law 112-42, 125 Stat. 462, 463–64 (19 U.S.C. 3805 note)).

21.  Proclamation 8818 of May 14, 2012, implemented the USCTPA with respect to the United States and, pursuant to sections 201(a) and 203(o) of the USCTPA Act, incorporated in the HTS the schedule of duty reductions and rules of origin necessary or appropriate to carry out the USCTPA.

22.  Section 201 of the USCTPA Act authorizes the President to proclaim such modifications or continuation of any duty, such continuation of duty-free or excise treatment, or such additional duties, as the President determines to be necessary or appropriate to carry out or apply articles 2.3, 2.5, 2.6, and 3.1.13, and Annex 2.3 (including the schedule of United States duty reductions with respect to originating goods) of the USCTPA.  The United States and Colombia are parties to the Convention.

23.  I have determined that, pursuant to section 201 of the USCTPA Act and section 1206(a) of the 1988 Act, modifications to the HTS are necessary or appropriate to ensure the continuation of tariff and certain other treatment accorded to originating goods under tariff categories modified in Proclamation 9549 and to carry out the duty reductions proclaimed in Proclamation 8818.

24.  Section 203 of the USCTPA Act provides rules for determining whether goods imported into the United States originate in the territory of a party to the USCTPA and thus are eligible for the tariff and other treatment contemplated under the USCTPA.  A rule of origin was inadvertently omitted from general note 34 to the HTS in Proclamation 8818.  I have determined that a technical correction to general note 34 to the HTS is necessary to provide for the intended tariff and certain other treatment accorded under the USCTPA to originating goods of Colombia.

25.  On June 30, 2007, the United States entered into the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement (the “KORUS”).  The Congress approved the KORUS in section 101(a) of the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act (the “KORUS Act”) (Public Law 112-41, 125 Stat. 428, 430 (19 U.S.C. 3805 note)).

26.  Proclamation 8783 of March 6, 2012, implemented the KORUS with respect to the United States and, pursuant to sections 201(a) and 202(o) of the KORUS Act, incorporated in the HTS the tariff modifications and rules of origin necessary or appropriate to carry out the KORUS.

27.  Section 202 of the KORUS Act provides rules for determining whether goods imported into the United States originate in the territory of a party to the KORUS and thus are eligible for the tariff and other treatment contemplated under the KORUS.  Section 202(o)(2)(B)(i) of the KORUS Act authorizes the President to proclaim, as a part of the HTS, the rules of origin set forth in the KORUS, and, subject to the consultation and layover requirements of section 104, to proclaim modifications to such previously proclaimed rules of origin.

28.  The United States and Korea have agreed to modify a certain rule of origin under the KORUS and to apply the modified rule to their bilateral trade.  On August 14, 2019, in accordance with section 104 of the KORUS Act, the USTR submitted a report to the Committee on Finance of the Senate and the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives that sets forth the proposed modification to the specific textile rule of origin of the KORUS incorporated in the HTS.  The consultation and layover period specified in section 104 expired on October 14, 2019.

29.  In order to reflect the agreement between the United States and Korea related to the KORUS rules of origin, I have determined that it is necessary to modify the HTS.

30.  Proclamation 8783 inadvertently omitted a rule of origin from general note 33 to the HTS.  I have determined that a technical correction to general note 33 to the HTS is necessary to provide for the intended tariff and certain other treatment accorded under the KORUS to originating goods of Korea.

31.  On June 28, 2007, the United States entered into the United States-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement (the “USPATPA”).  The Congress approved the USPATPA in section 101(a) of the United States-Panama Trade Promotion Agreement Implementation Act (the “USPATPA Act”) (Public Law 112-43, 125 Stat. 497, 498–99 (19 U.S.C. 3805 note)).

32.  Proclamation 8894 of October 29, 2012, implemented the USPATPA with respect to the United States, and, pursuant to sections 201(a) and 203(o) of the USPATPA Act, incorporated in the HTS the tariff modifications and rules of origin necessary or appropriate to carry out the USPATPA.

33.  Section 203 of the USPATPA Act provides rules for determining whether goods imported into the United States originate in the territory of a party to the USPATPA and thus are eligible for the tariff and other treatment contemplated under the USPATPA.

34.  A rule of origin was inadvertently omitted from general note 35 to the HTS in Proclamation 8894.  I have determined that a technical correction to general note 35 to the HTS is necessary to provide for the intended tariff and certain other treatment accorded under the USPATPA to originating goods of Panama.

35.  In Proclamation 9955 of October 25, 2019, after considering the factors set forth in sections 501 and 502(c) of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended, (the “1974 Act”) (Public Law 93-618, 88 Stat. 1978, 2066–69 (19 U.S.C. 2461 and 2462(c))), and in particular section 502(c)(7) of the 1974 Act (19 U.S.C. 2462(c)(7)), I suspended the duty-free treatment accorded under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) (19 U.S.C. 2461 et seq.) to certain eligible articles that are the product of Thailand.  In order to reflect in the HTS this suspension of certain benefits under the GSP with respect to Thailand, Annex 2 of Proclamation 9955 modified general note 4(d) and certain subheadings of the HTS.

36.  Section 604 of the 1974 Act (19 U.S.C. 2483) authorizes the President to embody in the HTS the substance of the relevant provisions of that Act, and of other Acts affecting import treatment, and actions thereunder, including removal, modification, continuance, or imposition of any rate of duty or other import restriction.

37.  Annex 2 of Proclamation 9955 inadvertently omitted changes with respect to seven subheadings of the HTS.  I have determined, pursuant to section 604 of the 1974 Act, that it is necessary to modify the HTS to correct those inadvertent omissions so that the intended tariff treatment is provided.

38.  Proclamation 9466 of June 30, 2016, modified the HTS to provide for the tariff treatment of goods covered by the 2015 World Trade Organization Declaration on the Expansion of Trade in Information Technology Products, pursuant to section 111(b) of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (Public Law 103–465, 108 Stat. 4809, 4819–20 (19 U.S.C. 3521(b))).  Proclamation 9466 modified the HTS in part by deleting all rates of duty in the “Rates of Duty 1-Special” subcolumn for certain subheadings.

39.  In Proclamation 9687 of December 22, 2017, after considering the factors set forth in section 502(b) of the 1974 Act (19 U.S.C. 2462(b)), and in particular section 502(b)(2)(E) of the 1974 Act (19 U.S.C. 2462(b)(2)(E)), I terminated the suspension of Argentina’s designation as a GSP beneficiary developing country.  In order to reflect in the HTS the termination of the suspension of Argentina’s designation as a GSP beneficiary developing country, Annex IV of Proclamation 9687 modified general note 4(d) and certain subheadings of the HTS.

40.  In Proclamation 9687, after considering the factors set forth in sections 501 and 502(c) of the 1974 Act, and in particular section 502(c)(5) of the 1974 Act (19 U.S.C. 2462(c)(5)), I suspended the duty-free treatment accorded under the GSP to certain eligible articles that are the product of Ukraine.  In order to reflect in the HTS the suspension of certain benefits with respect to Ukraine, Annex III of Proclamation 9687 modified general note 4(d) and certain subheadings of the HTS.

41.  Proclamation 9687 inadvertently modified general note 4(d) to the HTS to include certain subheadings for which the rates of duty in the “Rates of Duty 1-Special” subcolumn were deleted by Proclamation 9466.  I have determined, pursuant to section 604 of the 1974 Act, that it is necessary to modify the HTS to reflect the deletion of the rates of duty in the “Rates of Duty 1-Special” column for those subheadings.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, acting under the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including sections 103(c), 105(a), 207, 324, and 611(a) of the USMCA Implementation Act; section 1206(a) of the 1988 Act; section 201 of the USSFTA Act; sections 201 and 203(o) of the USCTPA Act; sections 201 and 202(o) of the KORUS Act; sections 201 and 203(o) of the USPATPA Act; section 604 of the 1974 Act; and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, do proclaim that:

(1)  In order to provide generally for the preferential tariff treatment being accorded under the USMCA, to set forth rules for determining whether goods imported into the customs territory of the United States are eligible for preferential tariff treatment under the USMCA, to provide tariff-rate quotas with respect to certain originating goods of Canada, and to provide certain other treatment to originating goods for purposes of the USMCA, the HTS is modified as set forth in Annex I of Publication 5060 of the Commission, entitled “Modifications to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States to Implement the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement” (Publication 5060).  Publication 5060 is incorporated by reference into this proclamation.

(2)  In order to implement the initial stage of duty reduction provided for in the USMCA, to provide for future staged reductions in duties for originating goods provided for in the USMCA, and to provide tariff-rate quotas with respect to certain goods provided for in the USMCA, the HTS is modified as set forth in Annex II of Publication 5060.

(3)  The modifications to the HTS made by paragraphs (1) and (2) of this proclamation shall enter into effect on the dates indicated in Annexes I and II of Publication 5060.

(4)  In order to reflect in the HTS the termination of tariff treatment under the North American Free Trade Agreement, the HTS is modified as set forth in Annex III of Publication 5060.

(5)  The USTR is authorized to exercise my authority under section 103(c)(4) of the USMCA Implementation Act to take such action as may be necessary in implementing the tariff-rate quotas set forth in the Schedule of the United States to Annex 2-B of the USMCA to ensure that imports of agricultural goods do not disrupt the orderly marketing of agricultural goods in the United States.  This action is set forth in Annex II of Publication 5060.

(6)  The CITA, after consultation with the Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (the “Commissioner”), is authorized to consult with representatives of Canada and Mexico for the purpose of identifying particular textile or apparel goods that are mutually agreed to be hand-loomed fabrics of a cottage industry, hand-made cottage industry goods made of those hand-loomed fabrics, traditional folklore handicraft goods, or indigenous handicraft goods, as provided in article 6.2 of the USMCA.  The CITA is authorized to exercise my authority under section 103(c)(1) of the USMCA Implementation Act to provide duty-free treatment with respect to a good provided for under article 6.2 of the USMCA.  The Commissioner shall take action as directed by the CITA to carry out any such determination by the CITA.

(7)  The USTR is authorized to fulfill the obligations of the President under section 104 of the USMCA Implementation Act to obtain advice from the appropriate advisory committees and the Commission on the proposed implementation of an action by Presidential proclamation; to submit a report on such proposed action to the appropriate congressional committees; and to consult with those congressional committees regarding the proposed action.

(8)  The Secretary of Commerce is authorized to exercise the authority of the President under section 105(a) of the USMCA Implementation Act to establish or designate an office within the Department of Commerce to carry out the functions set forth in that section.

(9)  The CITA is authorized to review requests for modifications to a rule of origin for textile and apparel goods based on a change in the availability in the territories of the United States, Canada, and Mexico of a particular fiber, yarn, or fabric; to establish procedures governing such a request, providing that the person making the request bears the burden of demonstrating that a change is warranted, and ensuring appropriate public participation in review of a request; and to make a recommendation as to whether a requested modification to a rule of origin for a textile good based on a change in the availability of a particular fiber, yarn, or fabric is warranted.

(10)  The CITA is authorized to exercise my authority under section 207(a)(2)(B) of the USMCA Implementation Act to direct appropriate action under section 207(a)(2)(D) with respect to textile and apparel goods.

(11)  The CITA is authorized to exercise my authority under section 207(a)(1)(B) of the UMSCA Implementation Act to direct action under section 207(c) with respect to textile and apparel goods.

(12)  The Secretary of the Treasury is authorized to exercise my authority under section 207(a)(1)(B) of the USMCA Implementation Act to direct action under section 207(a)(1)(B)(i) or section 207(c) with respect to goods other than textile or apparel goods.

(13)  The USTR is authorized, after consultation with the Secretary of Transportation, to exercise my authority under section 324 of the USMCA Implementation Act.

(14)  The USTR is authorized to exercise the function assigned to the President under section 611(a) of the USMCA Implementation Act to consult with the appropriate congressional committees and stakeholders Bodog Poker regarding joint reviews under article 34.7 of the USMCA.

(15)  In order to reflect in the HTS the modifications to the rules of origin under the USSFTA, general note 25 to the HTS is modified as set forth in Annex IV of Publication 5060.

(16)  The modifications to the HTS made by paragraph (15) of this proclamation shall enter into effect on the date indicated in Annex IV of Publication 5060.

(17)  In order to reflect in the HTS the modifications to the rules of origin under the USCTPA, general note 34 to the HTS is modified as set forth in Annex V of Publication 5060.

(18)  The modifications to the HTS made by paragraph (17) of this proclamation shall enter into effect on the date indicated in Annex V of Publication 5060.

(19)  In order to implement agreed amendments to a textile rule of origin under the KORUS, general note 33 to the HTS is modified as set forth in Annex VI of Publication 5060.

(20)  The modifications to the HTS made by paragraph (19) of this proclamation shall enter into effect on the date indicated in Annex VI of Publication 5060.

(21)  In order to make technical corrections necessary to provide the intended rules of origin under the USCTPA, the KORUS, and the USPATPA, the HTS is modified as set forth in Annex VII of Publication 5060.

(22)  The modifications to the HTS made by paragraph (21) of this proclamation shall enter into effect on the dates indicated in Annex VII of Publication 5060.

(23)  In order to provide the intended tariff treatment with respect to certain articles that are the product of Thailand, general note 4(d) and pertinent subheadings of the HTS are modified as set forth in Annex VIII of Publication 5060.

(24)  The modifications to the HTS made by paragraph (23) of this proclamation shall enter into effect on the date indicated in Annex VIII of Publication 5060.

(25)  In order to make technical corrections to reflect the rates of duty in the “Rates of Duty 1-Special” subcolumn for certain subheadings with respect to certain articles of Argentina and Ukraine, general note 4(d) and pertinent subheadings of the HTS are modified as set forth in Annex IX of Publication 5060.

(26)  The modifications to the HTS made by paragraph (25) of this proclamation shall enter into effect on the date indicated in Annex IX of Publication 5060.

(27)  Any provisions of previous proclamations and Executive Orders that are inconsistent with the actions taken in this proclamation are superseded to the extent of such inconsistency.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-ninth day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fourth.

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It is the latest of the 303 regional trade agreements (RTAs) currently in force—whose rank is likely to increase in the foreseeable future. The RTAs have hollowed out the World Trade Organization (WTO), and this process is likely to accelerate going forward. About half of world trade is now covered by the RTAs, reducing the scope and relevance of WTO rules and tariff schedules, as well as its dispute settlement and appeal mechanism.

If the USMCA is used as a template for future US trade negotiations, that would hasten the regionalization of world trade, fragmenting the global trading system based on the WTO and marginalizing the organization.

Below are key features of the USMCA, most of which are new in a US trade agreement.

• Auto parts rules of origin: raising the threshold from 62.5 percent to 75 percent (and 70 percent for steel and aluminum used in making parts).

• Use of quota: while being frowned upon by the WTO, the USMCA contains side letters to exempt 2.6 million passenger vehicles each from Canada and Mexico from potential Section 232 tariffs (of the US Trade Expansion Act of 1962, threatened by the United States on national security ground) on an annual basis, and roughly current annual volumes of auto parts.

• New labor requirements: 40 to 45 percent of auto parts must be made by workers earning at least $16 per hour by 2023—to be more comparable to the US average wage levels in this sector. Mexico has also passed labor reform law promoting the unionization and collective bargaining rights of their workers.

• Agricultural markets: US farmers can have better access to Canada which has agreed to raise its tariff-free quotas on dairy, poultry, and egg products under its supply management regime.

• Digital trade: for the first time, there is a full chapter on free digital trade in an FTA. The chapter prohibits import duties and other charges on electronically transmitted digital products; discriminatory treatment of cross-border data transfers; and forced data localization.

• Dispute settlement: state-to-state disputes regarding a matter which arises under this agreement, or under another international agreement, including the WTO agreement, to which the disputing parties are party, are to be settled in a forum selected by the complaining party—giving it a choice of forum most favorable to its position, instead of automatically referring WTO disputes to the WTO dispute settlement system. Furthermore, if the formation of the arbitration panel (in a chosen forum) is being blocked by noncooperative responding parties, the USMCA Implementation Act (US Public Law 116-113) allows the United States to use its domestic laws to impose safeguards on any surges in imports from Canada and Mexico.

• Dealing with state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and subsidies: requiring SOEs to compete on commercial basis and that any advantages such as subsidies enjoyed by the SOEs do not have adverse effects on US companies and workers. These provisions are more comprehensive than the WTO’s rules on subsidies and countervailing duties.

• Dealing with a non-market economy: any member wanting to negotiate a free trade agreement with a non-market economy (as defined by a member—primarily aiming at China) has to keep other members informed; and upon conclusion of such agreement, the other members can withdraw from the USMCA with a six month notice.

• Including a chapter on currency manipulation: this is the first time currency manipulation is included in a trade agreement. Traditionally, currency issues are dealt with by the US Treasury, normally in consultation with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and its members.

Potential impacts of the USMCA

Several features of the USMCA can be viewed as representing the US template in future trade negotiations. Many of those features enjoy bipartisan political support and therefore are likely to stay beyond US President Donald J. Trump’s presidency. Specifically, US emphases on free digital trade, reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers to its agricultural exports, dealing with SOEs and subsidies, dealing with a non-market economy, preserving the US ability to enforce its trade laws in trade remedies—including the anti-dumping, countervailing duties and safeguards laws, and currency manipulation can be found in the US Trade Representative’s negotiating objectives vis-a-vis the United Kingdom and the European Union (EU).

In addition to agriculture, there are new areas of frictions concerning the upcoming trade negotiations with the United Kingdom and the EU. The free digital trade emphasis in the USMCA would be at odds with the plan of many European countries (Austria, France, Hungary, Poland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and others) to proceed with their national versions of a digital services tax after the United States pulled out of the multilateral negotiations sponsored by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The United States has threatened retaliatory tariffs on any country imposing digital taxes.

In addition, the USMCA emphasis on free cross-border flows of data would need to be reconciled with the EU General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR). Obviously, the difference between the US position and China’s security-driven restrictions on cross-border flows of data is much more glaring.

Also problematic is the USMCA chapter dealing with non-market economies—this would complicate the EU’s effort to negotiate a Comprehensive Agreement in Investment with China as well as the United Kingdom’s desire to seek a trade deal with China. On top of those issues, the US threat of imposing Section 232 tariffs on automobiles and auto parts remains a major irritant in the negotiations.

For developing countries, in the context of its effort to tighten the self-designation as “developing countries,” if the United States makes regular use of its demands contained in the automobiles chapter, for example the requirement that 40 to 45 percent of auto parts have to be made by workers earning at least $16 per hour, that would dilute the comparative advantages enjoyed by developing countries in their efforts to promote foreign trade to industrialize their economies.

More generally, the emphasis on tightening rules of origin for auto parts will strengthen emerging trends toward regionalization. Many companies have taken advantage of technological advances, especially in automation, and followed a desire to be close to their customers by setting up local production facilities to supply large national or regional markets such as North America. Recently, this regionalization trend has received strong impetus from the US-China trade war and from efforts to diversify and streamline complex global supply chains due to disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Finally, quite detrimental to the integrity of the WTO is the USMCA use of quota in side letters (exempting current volumes of automobiles and parts imports from Canada and Mexico fro potential future tariffs); provisions for a complaining party to select the forum to settle disputes even if the matters arise under the WTO agreement; and preserving the US ability to use its domestic laws to remedy trade complaints. These will lead to a further marginalization of the WTO dispute settlement mechanism. Already the WTO Appellate Body has been rendered inoperative due to lack of the necessary quorum to hear cases since the beginning of the year. Furthermore, the United States has signaled its opposition to using WTO resources to support the alternative trade dispute appeal system recently launched by the EU, China, and eighteen other countries. The US opposition to the use of WTO resources to support activities benefiting a subset of the membership can also have a detrimental effect on the plurilateral approach—increasingly used by many WTO members trying to make headway in new trade negotiations with like-minded countries since the global multilateral approach has failed over the past decades.

In short, while the USMCA preserves free-trade flows among the three member countries, its use by the United States as a template for future trade negotiations, starting with the EU and the United Kingdom, would have a far-reaching effect on future developments of world trade. The global trading regime based on the WTO would shift more and more toward regional trading arrangements, in the process further fragmenting world trade and marginalizing the role of the WTO. This is all happening at a vulnerable moment for the WTO, which is going through a process of selecting a new director-general.

Hung Tran is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and former Executive Managing Director at the Institute of International Finance.

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Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Assn. (APMA) is optimistic that the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will deliver more sustained work to the country’s supply chain once the deal comes into force July 1. 

It replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in place since 1994. A key change with the new agreement is that Canadian (as well as American and Mexican) automakers may have to increase their USMCA-bloc sourcing to ensure 75% of a vehicle’s parts are made a signatory country, up from the current 62.5% under NAFTA; and that 40%-45% of auto content be made by workers earning at least $16 per hour. 

This will have an impact, although an increase in costs will be reined in, predicts APMA President Flavio Volpe. He thinks Canada’s high-tech manufacturing and research hubs, which are developing expertise in industry 4.0 tech such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, will enable parts makers to keep costs down. 

“We see a 25% increase in Canada” regarding parts sourcing, and while there would not be a similar increase in jobs, “there will be more work and there will not be 25% more costs. Maybe 5% across all vehicle costs,” he says. 

This would not be enough to force automakers to raise prices, especially given the focus on purchasing volumes over revenues in the sector, Volpe tells Wards. 

He thinks the Canadian parts sector may see “partial benefits” within a year, even though USMCA governments and industries have three years to fully implement the deal. As automakers assess medium-term strategies in the meantime, the 75% rule will start to push sourcing changes. 

And looking ahead, with autos, their parts and related production being increasingly automated – with labor a declining portion of costs – the ability of a higher-tech manufacturing center such as Canada to competitively supply components and materials will grow, predicts Volpe. 

Trade deals look ahead 25 years, and toward the end of that period driverless cars could be making accidents less likely, reducing the need for expensive anti-collision systems and costly materials, he suggests – making autos’ technological features an increasingly valuable component delivered by brains rather than brawn. 

His comments contrast with concerns by some researchers the USMCA will inflate auto costs and possibly depress demand and sales. A paper presented in June 2019 at the Global Trade Analysis Project in Warsaw, Poland, predicted 7.7% of the value of USMCA-bloc automotive input sales would shift move back into the signatory countries from other exporters. While this will generate work, it also will cost money – with auto production costs rising 0.8% in Canada and Mexico and 0.3% in the U.S., the paper predicts. 

David Adams, president and CEO of Global Automakers of Canada, agrees costs could rise: “It’s the only trade agreement where costs are going up instead of going down…It’s really not a free-trade agreement, it’s a managed-trade agreement,” he tells Wards. 

Canadian auto and parts makers could be “collateral damage beneficiaries” of the USMCA, he suggests, although, he adds, the impacts are likely to be so complex and unanticipated, a clear picture of the agreement’s effect on the North American auto sector may not emerge for two years. 

Companies will have to provide proof bodog poker review of compliance with USMCA sourcing rules from July 1, but Adams predicts tough enforcement by regulators will not happen immediately, especially given the industry is coping with the effects of COVID-19. 

The pandemic has pushed automakers into reconsidering extended supply chains and reappraising local sourcing, and this process probably will combine with the USMCA to increase Canadian parts purchases, he suggests. 

Will price competitiveness suffer? Maybe, especially initially, hindering automakers’ ability to export outside North America while competing with Asian manufacturers who “take advantage of global supply chains to get the highest quality for the lowest cost,” Adams says. 

Could automation help? He agrees it might, although the 2008-2010 financial crash pushed many manufacturers to abandon manual-based systems. The Canadian government has helped by allowing investors to write off capital stock in one year rather than many, Adams notes. 

Ultimately, whether this change will be good news for the three countries’ auto sectors is disputed. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also predicted in March 2019 that USMCA sourcing rules would increase costs, preventing automakers from buying inexpensive parts from outside the bloc. All three countries would see their auto and parts exports fall as a result, including trade among the three signatory countries, the IMF projected. 

Says Adams, “There’s a lot of questions about the impact on auto and parts makers, and these questions won’t be answered anytime soon.”

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According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, when compared with the previous April, U.S. trade with Canada and Mexico dropped by 43% and 46%, respectively. 

Undoubtedly, the three North American trade partners—the United States, Mexico, and Canada—have been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic in terms of both human and economic costs.

Although the U.S., Mexico, and Canada are on different timetables for their public health recoveries, it’s imperative that they not wait to begin planning for the region’s economic comeback. 

One of the first practical steps in the reopening of North America’s economies will be the implementation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, currently scheduled to take effect on July 1.

The new trade agreement will provide the certainty and confidence so desperately needed by the private sectors of the three countries.

The pact, supported by a revived trilateral U.S.-Mexico-Canada governmental economic commission, will be the foundational business and institutional government-to-government framework on which post-pandemic North American economic partnerships can be constructed.

As pointed out by a recent Heritage Foundation report, the upcoming implementation of the trade pact will also help to reduce the region’s dependence on the People’s Republic of China by taking advantage of the global trend to de-Sinicize supply chains, which may also produce a shift of manufacturing jobs to North America.

The economic impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on the world and region has been far-reaching and hugely disruptive in terms of scale and velocity. It must not, however, be allowed to weaken or undermine the commitment to free trade or the implementation of the pact, which is at the very heart of the economic vitality of North America. 

In the context of the pandemic recovery process, defending and advancing trade freedom is more critical than ever.

Uncertainty is the biggest threat to businesses of all sizes right now. In order to preserve the stability and predictability that result from the agreement, North American trade partners must adhere to the principles of economic freedom and implement the trilateral free-trade pact as scheduled. That’s the fastest path to a full economic reboot.

Additionally, policy priority should be given to proactive steps to advance e-commerce in the context of accelerating the implementation of the USMCA’s digital trade chapter, which provides a solid basis for further development of the already large cross-border flows of e-commerce.

Equally important is to ensure that the trade pact’s automotive rules of origin are implemented in a way that does not hinder the ability of the industry to start thriving again during and after the pandemic.

In this time of transition to the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, the uncertainty of the current situation should be minimized to maximize the utilization of supply chains in North America. 

The recently released Heritage Foundation report “Saving Lives and Livelihoods: Recommendations for Recovery” by the National Coronavirus Recovery Commission underlined:

The freedom to trade must be guarded and enhanced to spark constructive free-market competition and to ensure private sector growth for the economic recovery. 

The timely and smooth implementation of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement is a critical step toward that.

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