For a maximized image, please click on the cartoon.
by Laura Lai/Comment
One of the promises made by
Donald Trump during his presidential electoral campaign was to replace NAFTA
with a new deal more beneficial to the American citizens. And such a promise
made perfectly sense for a campaign on ‘Make America Great Again’ that is very
much based on the improvement of the economy, because almost 50 percent of the
U.S. global trade is made with only three countries: Canada, Mexico and China
(to read an October White House tweet on trade with China, click here).
The
difficulties to ratify the USMCA are constitutional based and Democrat-related.
Under the U.S. Constitution (Art. 2) the U.S. President representing the
executive power can sign international treaties with the agreement of the
Senate – considering that the two-thirds of the Senate is present. In order to
have a treaty coming into effect a two-thirds majority approval is necessary.
Mathematically speaking, the USMCA deal cannot enter into force without the
Democrats. It’s part of the so-called ‘balanced relationship’ on which the American
political system is based. The Republicans argue that the Democrats put
politics ahead the citizens, that their refusal is more because they prefer to
deny the U.S. President a win, or because for the Democrats to compromise means
to ‘sell out’. However, there are also Democrat voices in support of the USMCA:
the Governor of Kansas, Laura Kelly, was the first of all Democrat governors to
position herself in favor of the USMCA.
I can somehow understand the
Democrats’ focus on exploring ways to impeach the U.S. President. And my
understanding is derived from my understanding of the American political
system: The Democrats – which embody the legislative power – make some sort of
an opposition not to the executive power that the President represents, because
this wouldn’t make any sense (they are separate powers), but to the head of
government that the U.S. President also embodies. But I cannot fully understand
this massive time and effort invested in the impeachment procedure that there
is no more time and energy left for the ratification of the USMCA trade deal on
which depend millions of jobs, because in case this president is impeached,
according to the U.S. Constitution, it’s the U.S. Vice-President that takes his
place, who is also a Republican and I suppose a good friend of the current U.S.
President. So what is then all this impeachment procedure about? A personal
matter between the Democrats and the Republican current U.S. President, in
order to replace him with the Republican Vice-President?! Anyway, it’s the free
choice of the Democratic Party to focus more on one matter than on the other.
I disagree with the ranking of
political priorities by the Democratic Party. Basically nobody can prevent the
Democratic Party from investing time, energy and public money on something that
they consider to be a priority: the impeachment procedure of the U.S.
President. This procedure will stop by itself when there will be no more
evidence or when the evidences will prove to be inconclusive. The electorate
will judge whether or not the Democrats made good use of their mandate and of
the citizens’ money focusing on this ranking of prioritization, in which
impeachment comes first and USMCA – that is the focus of this paper – comes second.
The electorate of the Democrats sent its representatives to the Congress with a
political mandate to work in the advantage of the Americans. To my mind, the
impeachment procedure – that the Democrats are so fond of – is not more in the
advantage of the citizens than the ratification of the USMCA trade agreement
already ratified by Mexico and Canada. Furthermore, having had the ranking of
priorities done right, the USMCA ratification would have also costed time and
energy, but it wouldn’t have involved the spending of any public money. On the
contrary, the ratification of this regional trade deal generates money and
jobs. The Democrats consider a priority to spent time, energy and money on a
second impeachment procedure, postponing the ratification of a deal on which
depend at least 12 million jobs, and focus on a procedure that has no guarantee
of success, without too much interest for the electorate and no economic evident
advantages for the citizens.
All in all, NAFTA did not include
any provision for the representatives of the three signatories’ states to
periodically meet and update the treaty. Such a provision is mentioned in the ‘Closer
Economic Relationship’ (CER) between Australia and New Zealand.
The
first CER agreement was signed in 1922 and it was a trade agreement. In 1933 it
evolved towards a regional agreement between the two neighboring countries
giving each other preferential commercial tariffs and some special rates of duty.
In 1966, their agreement became NAFTA: New Zealand Australia Free Trade
Agreement. The Australian-New Zealand
1966 NAFTA agreed on removal of tariffs and quantitative restrictions on 80
percent of their trade until the 1970s.
They agreed to review their regional free trade agreement in 1988, in
1992 and in 1995. And with every step they made the economic cooperation was
added new elements, but it stayed and it stays an economic integration process
with no political integration aim as in the case of the EU.
The
North American NAFTA was also a regional trade agreement. And so is the USMCA.
It does not include any provisions of political integration and on USMCA to
become a supra-national genuine new state. Following the example of the New
Zealand-Australia NAFTA of having stipulated to periodically review their trade
agreement, I was wondering if the North American NAFTA would still have faced this
deadlock. I think yes, because having mentioned to periodically review the
agreement does not necessarily means that the Democrats would have hurried to
ratify it, if this is not such a priority for them as the impeachment procedure
is.
In
the meantime, the American farmers thought of a very original way to urge the
Congress to put them before any party politics: They come up with a sensational
musical parody to the old famous song ‘YMCA’ that they called ‘USMCA’ (to
listen, click here):
‘We need to pass the USMCA
We can grow everything here
Trump man
Trade would give us a hand
Nancy
We know you’re the woman
who can get this deal through
Congress
Farmers…’ (the end)
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