Press Releases
Pascrell Opposes NAFTA“It’s not enough, it does not fulfill the promises made, and it will not get my vote.”
Washington, D.C.,
December 19, 2019
Tags:
Labor & Trade
U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09), New Jersey’s only member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, today announced on the House floor he would vote against final passage of H.R. 5430, implementing legislation allowing the revised North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the governments of the United States, Canada, and Mexico to be enacted. Pascrell also opposed reporting the legislation earlier this week during consideration in the House Committee on Ways and Means. Rep. Pascrell, one of Congress’s most vocal opponents of the destructive NAFTA agreement of 1994, prepared the following floor statement today: “Madam Speaker, NAFTA has been an albatross around the neck of American labor and jobs for 25 long years. If we don’t fix the deal right now, our workers may be doomed to another generation left holding the bag. There is no higher trade priority for me than updating NAFTA. I went to Montreal. I went to Mexico City – twice. I testified at the U.S. International Trade Commission twice. We have worked our tails off to lay the foundation for negotiating principles on labor, on the environment, and especially on enforcement. And this bill has improvements to NAFTA. And I think many of the positive aspects of this legislation are a direct result of our efforts. But it’s not enough, it does not fulfill the promises made, and it will not get my vote. There are too many questions left open. Will Mexico be held accountable to fully enforce their labor laws? We don’t know. Will the sham protection unions in Mexico be eliminated with the new enforcement mechanism? We don’t know. Will this agreement do anything to raise wages for American workers? Doubtful. And what can be said about this rushed process even though the Senate is not taking up the agreement until next year? We broke decades of precedent by skipping the mock markup. Ignored procedure. Limited consultations. The rush to judgment will not provide assurances to our working men and women, but it will expedite a White House East Room victory celebration. By moving forward today with this process and without answering these questions, it is crystal clear the fix was in from the start.” Rep. Pascrell has been a leader in Congress on trade issues. Pascrell has been deeply involved in the NAFTA renegotiations, traveling to talks in both Montreal and Mexico City in 2018 and working with the U.S. Trade Representative to ensure the perspectives of American workers and businesses are heard and accounted for in any agreement. Pascrell has repeatedly emphasized that any new NAFTA agreement must contain strong enforceable labor provisions that can be implemented and then monitored meaningfully, environmental standards that can lift all boats and block companies from dumping in waterways or polluting the air, and reforms to the investment chapter of the agreement to ensure public welfare measures and the rights of sovereign governments would not be unfairly undermined by international tribunals, among other areas. In January 2018, Rep. Pascrell led 183 House Democrats urging U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to prioritize Mexican labor reforms in NAFTA renegotiations. In August 2018, Pascrell wrote to then-Ways and Means chairman Kevin Brady (D-TX-08) calling on him to assemble the House Advisory Group on Negotiation (HAGON) to advise the Trump administration as it continued the NAFTA renegotiations. In November 2018, Pascrell and former Rep. Sander Levin (D-MI-09) wrote to the U.S. trade representative and Labor Secretary Alex Acosta highlighting anti-worker violence and intimidation in Mexico. In April 2019, Pascrell led 85 of his colleagues again calling on Ambassador Lighthizer to demand that Mexico pass meaningful labor reforms before consideration of any renegotiated NAFTA. |