Thread: Give Trump his due on trade victory with Mexico, Canada

No President can negotiate any immigration issue, up, down or otherwise, under TPA because of Steve King's law that passed in 2015. And that's fine.

It was a great rally tonight in Minnesota!!

Congress needs to be passing immigration law, not trade negotiators,” King charged. He went on to say:

Well, that language is an amendment that is in here in the Conference Report along with language that prohibits the negotiations under Trade Promotion Authority on climate change. So, we are protected from executive decisions imposed upon this Congress in a usurpation of Article One authority by two-pieces of language in here. No negotiation under TPA can include climate change…and no negotiations under TPA can include immigration. Congress can speak to that, but they cannot negotiate that under TPA.

https://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...e-trade-deals/

Despite Mexico and Congress's opposition, US moves ahead with plan to give Mexico $20 Million to deport illegal aliens

Originally Posted by Judy

No President can negotiate any immigration issue, up, down or otherwise, under TPA because of Steve King's law that passed in 2015. And that's fine.

It was a great rally tonight in Minnesota!!

I would think Steve King would know since he wrote the law! It was his hope that the Trump administration would strip the visa guest worker program out of the trade agreement! He actually said as much. You're half right, Trump can't add immigration but he can get rid of the visa guest worker program that shouldn't be there in the first place.

Trump caved because Canada wouldn't let him dump or reduce the visa guest worker program from NAFTA 2.0! According to the Trump administration the cave was called a compromise.

Trump can't add or reduce. I don't know that Trump wanted to get rid of it entirely, there may be some business need for it, he just wanted less of it but couldn't negotiate it so left it the same as it is. Congress can fix it if they want to. Maybe Trump can develop a system to at least count the Canadianss who use it. They count the Mexicans, but not the Canadians, should count both.

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

Trade agreements have everything to do with illegal immigration, foreign labor, and legal immigration levels and we dont know what is in this secretive deal yet and we have no reason to trust Trump or Kushner.

Instead of blindly praising Trump for doing something on trade, we need access to the fine print on this deal and we need citizen activists from ALIPAC combing throught the agreement with a fine tooth comb before we find out years down the road we got screwed again.

No need to wait years to find out. Yes, we got screwed on immigration with the continuation of the same guest worker program that was in the original NAFTA! Changing the name of the agreement doesn't change that fact. Welcome to NAFTA 2.0.

Trump's plan was to reduce the number of guest workers but Canada would have none of it, so Trump ended up caving and keeping things as they were in the original NAFTA.

NAFTA Will Be Replaced by the USMCA. How Does It Affect Agriculture?

By Dan Nosowitz on October 4, 2018

A dairy farm in British Columbia.

Eric Buermeyer on Shutterstock

NAFTA is dead, replaced by an updated, though broadly similar, trade pact: the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA.

NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement, has long been a punching bag for the Trump administration; during his campaign, Trump declared it “the worst deal the United States ever signed.” Over the weekend, the governments of the United States, Canada, and Mexico came together to create a new, and newly named, version: the USMCA.

Much of the new agreement has to do with the automotive industry, which is not really our purview, but there are several sticking points in agriculture that USMCA changes. Most importantly, there are changes in the dairy trade between the US and Canada, one of the most fiercely debated agriculture trade issues in North America over the past decade.

The US dairy industry has for many years produced a huge surplus of milk, to the point where dairy farmers have had to dump millions of gallons of milk into the garbage, and the government has even had to purchase huge quantities of surplus cheese. The surplus keeps prices low, but is awful for dairy farmers; an estimated 10 percent of American dairy farms shut down in the last year alone. That means that American dairy producers want to export their products, and why not to our most important trade partner, Canada? But Canada has strict import rules and regulations on its own domestic dairy industry, designed to keep it healthy. Incredibly cheap and abundant American milk would undercut the Canadian market significantly, so Canada slaps tariffs on it to protect its own farmers.

Trump, as well as American farmers, have long been furious about this, despite the fact that Canada imports far more American milk than the US imports Canadian milk; the US has a trade surplus of about $400 million in dairy.

The USMCA breaks down those rules a little bit, giving new quotas for American dairy exports to Canada. Under the agreement, American producers can export up to 3.6 percent of the Canadian market; after that, heavy tariffs will be applied. Doesn’t sound like a lot, but that’ll be worth about $70 million to the American dairy industry.

Canadian dairy farmers, as you might expect, are not happy about the changes. An op-ed in the Globe and Mail from a dairy farmer reads in part: “Would any other Canadian citizen feel that it is fair to be expected to do the same job and work the same hours that they have been doing for decades, but to be paid less just because our government caved to foreign interests and signed a trade deal? I think not.”

http://modernfarmer.com/2018/10/naft...t-agriculture/

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That's pretty much how our manufacturing workers felt when they lost their jobs to NAFTA. It's pay-back time. This $70 million a year in diary gains for US is but a pittance compared to the trillions Americans have lost to NAFTA over the past 25 years.

Originally Posted by Judy

Trump can't add or reduce. I don't know that Trump wanted to get rid of it entirely, there may be some business need for it, he just wanted less of it but couldn't negotiate it so left it the same as it is. Congress can fix it if they want to. Maybe Trump can develop a system to at least count the Canadianss who use it. They count the Mexicans, but not the Canadians, should count both.

You're missing the boat here. Steve King's law didn't prevent Trump from ending or reducing the guest worker program written into NAFTA 2.0, it just stopped him from expanding it and creating new programs related to immigration.

Here, perhaps you should read this again:

In a letter to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, the congressman cited the language he tacked onto the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015, also known as the customs bill, that says trade agreements “do not require changes to the immigration laws of the United States or obligate the United States to grant access or expand access to visas.”

Nothing in there states Trump can't reduce an already granted guest worker program or end it completely!

Truth and facts matter!

Any immigration agreements between the U.S. and Mexico can’t be in the trade deal, including reducing the number of guest worker visas or creating arrangements for immigration enforcement.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...nking-nafta-i/

I saw Steve King interviewed and he said it can't be done at all. That was the whole point of his legislation, to keep all immigration issues out of trade deals, to keep them separate so Congress writes the immigration laws, not trade negotiators.

Prime Minister pledges compensation for dairy farmers hit by USMCA deal

Dairy Farmers of Canada president says meeting with Trudeau 'cannot appease the concerns of the dairy farmers'

Sidhartha Banerjee · The Canadian Press · Posted: Oct 04, 2018 4:32 PM ET | Last Updated: 6 hours ago

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says dairy farmers will be compensated for their expected losses under the new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, making the pledge directly at a meeting with their representatives on Thursday.

Trudeau met privately with dairy representatives in downtown Montreal amid concerns in the industry that they're bearing the brunt under the recently concluded free-trade pact.

Canadian dairy farmers stand to lose 3.59 per cent of their market to U.S. producers under the new trade deal, known as USMCA.

"That's why we're going to be working with them over the coming weeks and months to figure out exactly what is the compensation they need," Trudeau said after touring the offices of Montreal company Seville Films.

"How we can ensure not just that they're OK, but that they continue to have confidence in the future of the dairy sector in Canada."

The USMCA is the third free-trade agreement in which Canada has agreed to open access to its supply-managed sectors, this time including increased access for eggs, chicken and turkey.

While touting USMCA as a good deal for Canadians by securing access to its largest trading partner and the largest market in the world, Trudeau acknowledged those sacrifices.

"They told me they were worried," Trudeau said of his meeting with milk producers. "They told me they felt they have continued to give through a number of trade deals they've signed, and they're right."

For example, under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership — with 10 countries including Mexico, Japan and Australia — dairy farmers ceded 3.25 per cent of the market.

'Producers are right to be dissatisfied'

Dairy Farmers of Canada president Pierre Lampron wasn't satisfied with what he heard.

"We recognize the symbolism of the gesture of Prime Minister Trudeau in offering to meet with our industry to hear our concerns firsthand," he said in a statement. "However, the absence of details on measures to mitigate the impact of the concessions made within the USMCA, as well as the absence of a vision for the future of our industry at this time, cannot appease the concerns of the dairy farmers."

Raymond Bachand, Quebec's chief free-trade negotiator during the recently concluded negotiations, said the number one objective for Quebec was to preserve access to the American market and that was done.

"However, Ottawa has sold a portion of the milk market and it is clear that it hurts when added to European (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) and the TPP deals," Bachand said on the sidelines of a metallurgical conference.

"This is eight to 10 per cent of the market. Producers are right to be dissatisfied. But it's not just compensation, but also strategic thinking to see how we make our businesses more competitive."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/tru...edge-1.4850974