News Release

NAFTA: What Should a Deal Do?

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[See “Statement on NAFTA’s ‘Kafkaesque’ Turn” by Manuel Pérez-Rocha, associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, on the accuracy.org blog. He has written extensively on NAFTA, is currently in Mexico and will be back in D.C. this weekend.]

LORI WALLACH, via Ufuoma Otu, uotu at citizen.org, @PCGTW
Wallach is director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. She said today: “A preliminary NAFTA renegotiation deal between the United States and Mexico has just been announced.”We know progress was made between the U.S. and Mexico on some key changes we have demanded for decades.

“But we also know that the enforceability of the new labor standards to which the countries agreed is still lacking, which is a serious problem that needs to be resolved.

“Mainly though, we do not have enough information to determine if this initial U.S.-Mexico deal can be the basis for the real NAFTA replacement we’ve been demanding that could stop NAFTA’s serious, ongoing damage.

“A lot of critical issues are still in play.

“Canada has not participated in negotiations since May, so it’s unclear where it stands on the terms agreed to by Mexico and the United States. …

“Any new deal must end NAFTA’s job outsourcing incentives and ISDS [Investor-state dispute settlement] tribunals where corporations can attack our laws and add strong environmental and labor terms with swift and certain enforcement to raise wages.”