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U.S. Politics Cloud Timetable for Implementation of USMCA
Colin Robertson - Canadian Global Affairs Institute

 Farmscape for August 9, 2019

The Vice President of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute suggests the biggest factor clouding the future of the new North American trade agreement is politics leading up to the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.
The U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement has been ratified and is ready to go in Mexico, legislation to ratify the agreement has gone through second reading in Canada and now needs to be passed by the House of Commons and the Senate and enabling legislation is awaiting introduction into the U.S. House of Representatives.
Colin Robertson, the Vice President and a fellow of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, says the biggest question mark is still the United States.

Clip-Colin Robertson-Canadian Global Affairs Institute:
Public opinion polling suggests there is strong support, particularly for the Canada U.S. side of it.
There's less support for the Mexico U.S.
A lot of Americans are unsure for environmental labor reasons, crime about Mexico as a reliable partner but generally there's strong support.
In fact support for the original NAFTA rose as the negotiations went on and so there is broad public support within both Republican and particularly within the Democratic base but, when you look at the Congress itself, the backdrop to all this is a very polarized situation between President Donald Trump and particularly the Democrats.
It's personal, it's very polarized and it's quite vicious and the Democrats and Congress, a number of them don't want to give Donald Trump any kind of victory.
Some of them say this may be a good agreement but if we pass it it gives Donald Trump another asset when we move into next year's Presidential election and everything is done against the backdrop of the upcoming U.S. Presidential election.

Robertson says, given the partisanship we're seeing between Democrats and Republicans, it's an open question as to when this agreement might actually wind up in Congress.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.


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