GOP Continues To Push For USMCA Vote

When lawmakers return to D.C. in a few days, the hope is focus on USMCA will begin again, and the updated NAFTA could be brought up for a vote in the House.  USMCA means more than $2 billion in new sales for the farm sector, but only if it is ratified.

“There’s an urgency to this, every year we delay, or every day we delay, excuse me, hurts our farmers, certainly hurts our workers," House Ways and Means Ranking Republican Kevin Brady recently said on CNBC.  "In comparison to the current NAFTA.  And I think, there’s just a desire to get this approved this year.”

There’s also a political urgency, with next year’s elections.  Brady discounts claims, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will side with USMCA opponents in her party and keep the deal struck last year off the House floor to deny the president a political ‘win.’

“I think it is actually a win for them, as well, because these labor and environmental provisions are something they’ve championed," Brady noted.  "I’ve been involved in trade for a long time. I think I’ve worked on 12 of the 14 trade agreements we have in place today, these are items they have championed for decades and have never achieved in a trade agreement, they’re there.”

Congress returns to session September 9^th.

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