On cspan. To talk aboutoing the u. S. Mexicocanada trade agreement and two guests joining us. Lori wallach with Public Citizen, the global trade watch director and philip coxe of the group trade works for america. Thank you for joining us today. Of whatnapshot not only usmca is, but the perspective you take on its bedload the litany. Validity. Guest the good news is nafta definitely needs to be replaced. A million jobs have been certified as lost to nafta. Nafta has been a mess. The bad news is the deal the , itident signed last year would have fixed job outsourcing and added a monopoly rights for pharmaceutical companies to lock in prices. The president has been stalling fixing that stuff. Maybe we get a deal that could make a difference for people. The president is going to have to decide if he will fix nafta or stick with the pharmaceutical companies. Guest 2 not surprisingly, i have a little bit different take on it. I think it is really a balance disagreement. This agreement will increase jobs and exports and increase markets for american goods. It is balanced with protections for the labor, environment, first of its kind protections for Small Business throughout the supply chain, a reason why you have groups as diverse as the National Association of manufacturers to even the Progressive Policy Institute on the left that have endorsed it. I think we are making great process progress. Mexico has ratified and ambassador lighthizer continues to work in a constructive way with democratic leadership on the hill. You continue to hear Speaker Pelosi say they are on a path to yes and i believe we are close to getting it done. It will not only be a win for the president most importantly, it will be a win for american workers. What is different in this agreement that is not did not exist in nafta . Guest 2 i think he will solve outsourcing because you have labor standards and wage. Tandards in mexico we saw her recently last week the mexicans have put more money into labor enforcement then was originally part of the deal, which i think is an exceptional show of good faith, that has been the hangup. Really the politics of it and we will get into that in a minute, and the politics are aligned. And the fact you have a strange way helps incentivize folks who want to get this deal done. I think we are going to see it get done whether it is before the end of the year or after is to make the standard clear so that people in mexico can have labor rights, wages would come up, and we would outsource american jobs so that people in mexico could buy our exports. But number two, it has to be enforceable. Even if mexico passes a new labor law, which happens but now it is under injunctions all the companys have frozen it, like happens to obamacare or it doesnt get funded. It is 8 of the funding that the government of mexico says it needs to set up these new institutions. Even if that happens, if in the end the rules are not followed, it is not enforceable. Which, you know, to get to your original question, what is different, it is not enough different from the old nafta and nafta, except for the new goodies for big pharma, which would handcuff congress in cutting the prices of medicine. The big move is, will the president get the pharma goodies out and strengthen the environmental and labor standards . Nafta got rid of all tariffs. It is 0, 0. 50 years ago. It is all about getting those standards right and getting the incentives right. Host since you brought up the pharmaceutical side of it, what is done in this version pharmaceutically that they have concerns about politically . Guest disagreement is an improvement. Is it perfect . No. In washington you have to compromise, take both sides, and come together and find something that works. I think this is a balanced agreement. Nafta is a quarter century old. It is 25 years ago, 1994, that it came into effect. The economy has changed. Digital provisions, Digital Commerce on this agreement are a first of its kind. The i. T. Professions are incredibly important. Incentivizing u. S. Manufacturing, incredibly important. The first of its kind provisions on the environment on Small Business. In terms of the pharma provisions, what i would say is, we need pharma to be able to innovate. We need pharma to be able to bring new drugs into the market. Usmca does nothing to inhibit congress from acting on drug pricing come on anything else they want to do. So from my standpoint, you look at what pharma has done they have cured polio, cured hiv, i have a mom who recently passed away from cancer who could have benefited from more medicines coming onto the market. It is reallyis something the left is ginning up to try to kill a deal, for im not sure what reason. This is a good deal. 176,000 new jobs for workers. Im not sure what is bad about that. Host let me introduce callers into this. 2027488000 2027488001 2027488001 free democrats, 2027488000 for democrats. 2027488001 for a pop against. Guest if you want to know the information, look up www. Icc. Gov. You will see a study there. When they did the normal study of this agreement, they actually found it would lose 54,000 jobs. 54,000 jobs. Host who is itc . Trade the international commission. They are required to do an assessment of every trade agreement. They did not like the outcome, so they did a redo and they came up with new methodology for the First Time Ever where they just sort of brought out of the air a new number, a positive value. Clear what that means, that is about handcuffing onlines from regulating platforms. So google, who keeps destroying our privacy and trading data, or amazon and the big monopolies. A value forassign regulatory stability, not being able to regulate those guys. A, that is growth and jobs. When you look at the study itself, this is a job loser. Only when they cook the books and do not regulate the big commerce giants do they get those numbers. Here is a reason to do this and i am hopeful we can get a good agreement naftas damage is ongoing. The reason we are fighting for a good agreement is because we want to stop the ongoing damage. The problem is the agreement the president signed did not have standards to fix those problems and added this unacceptable pharma stuff. I hope we get a chance to talk more about it. You can read it yourself and see it is a problem. Host we will let mr. Cox respond. 14 million jobs. There is no question, the itc is anonpartisan the itc is Nonpartisan Organization 176 thousand jobs minimum. I believe it will be more than that. Host before we go to other nuances of usmca, this is from baltimore, maryland. Robert, you are up first for our guests. Go ahead with your question or comment. Passed in theafta 1990s, the pharma lobby successfully got subsidies goods it on our directly lead to the shutdown of hundreds of farms, family farms in new mexico, which precipitated exodus to the United States. This is well documented, a pew research study. I have called in with this point before and it is generally met with misdirection. I am hoping one of your panelists can weigh in on what went down and what the effects were. I want toecond cspan Editorial Staff to reconsider the open, freeforall calling format where callers like me can call in and have a lot of times completely unmoderated comments that tend to promote or perpetuate a lot of falsehoods that you hear. Thanks a lot. Host that point we will leave aside. The point you made. Mr. Cox, go first. Guest i am not a fan of subsidies in general. Countryraveled the frequently over the last year on behalf of this agreement, and you do talk to farmers and they are hurting right now. It is a tough time, so i think disagreement we are not offering a vacuum when it comes to farmers in the agricultural community. And usmca, there are a lot of other forces going on trade with china obviously, japanese trade agreement. Allmondnk if you are an brower in the san joaquin valley, a dairy farmer in wisconsin, a corn grower in iowa, this is a good deal for you. That is why we have to get it done. Guest corn is dutyfree with or without nafta. Nafta there is no way to out there is not a lot there for farmers. To answer the call or question, you are right. Nafta treated food like any orer commodity, like attire steal, and what it did was limit what would stop inputs you are right, the mexican had 2. 3 million small farm families that were displaced. There is a double whammy, and it is something a lot of people do not want to admit, which is we actually have a trade deficit in agriculture with nafta. Before nafta, we had a 2. 5 billion surplus. We have gone downhill in the last five years, now it is 9. 3 billion deficit in 2018. If you can imagine, our caller in maryland, it is lose lose. U. S. Farmers have also seen a deficit. There are 200 30,000 family farmers host where are you getting this information from . Guest this is the u. S. Department of agriculture data. Host ok, so this when i am putting to now . Guest that is just mexico, showing canada and mexico. That is the combined nafta, one mexico, the other canada. Guest the trade agreement, usmca opens markets for farmers, which is why the farm bureau strongly endorses this agreement. Farmers all across the country it is why you have every state anm an egg ag state, who are strong supporters of this agreement. Go to the u. S. Department of agriculture website and check it up. Guest can ask a question . Zero is zero, so how is it opening markets . Guest i dont think that is accurate. If you look at dairy alone, some ariffeds are ter 300 . Guest there is potential Market Access whether our tariffs are over, 48 billion in the american ag trade, so a very small margins. But after that, we have been dutyfree since nafta for 50 years. Guest yeah, we are going to agree to disagree. Host we will take a call. This is from indiana. Bill, hello. , my question i was on that committee back in 1981. Tradee trying to get a deal through. Our position was, the democratic position and the labor position, to change the trading deal to reciprocal. If you had had reciprocal, you would not be in the shape you are in now. Thes funny to me that runaround talk about tariffs if i am not mistaken, i am 96 years old and i believe i heard the Republican Party talking about tariffs, which gave us the biggest depression we have ever had. I dont know why they cannot go along with reciprocal. My suggestion, reciprocal. Host bill, thank you very much. Is reciprocal achievable . Guest bill, great point. This is a lot of what the president has been arguing for, not only with usmca but also with some of the negotiations with china and other countries. He campaigned on it. It moves quickly and i think the president deserves a lot of the credit for renegotiating what again is a 25yearold trade agreement in nafta. These things are never easy, but you need to have some leadership, both out of the white house and on capitol hill to try to get these things done to make sure that we have more trade agreements that are more fair if to the american worker. That is what usmca is. Guest on your point of reciprocity, before nafta we had a small trade surplus with mexico, and a small deficit with canada. 25 years into nafta, we have a 180 billion deficit, starting with reciprocity and we went into the tank. That shows basically what happened over time. But here is what is crazy or that itc study, but here is what is crazy. That itc study, even that version says you will only see 1. 8 billion dollars of deficit reduction. So, no, this agreement unfortunately does not get us through reciprocity. If we can get the pharma stuff out and get the labor and Environmental Standards enforced, it is worth viewing because it will stop the ongoing job outsourcing. No one should think this agreement will be the answer to everyones problems. Host lori wallach is the global trade watch director for Public Citizen, which is . Wast Public Citizen founded by ralph nader in the 1990s. We have about 5000 numbers. 500 and numbers. Go to our website. Host and phil cox, trade works for america, who is behind that . Ofst it is a coalition 300,000 people that live there voices on this agreement. Host phil cox, when you talk the politics of the situation, with nancy pelosi saying yesterday they might be close to achieving a deal even though they have concerns. What does that tell you about whether this thing will be done or not in a short manner . Guest to use a football analogy, i think we are on the 2 yard line. We have been at it for over a year, but as i said, i think for two principal reasons, if you are a democratic member of congress and you are in a competitive Congressional District or a district that President Trump won in 2016, and there are 31 of them, and 50 plus are in competitive districts, i think you are looking for that bipartisan vote going into your reelection to be able to say i dont agree with the president , i voted to impeach the president , but i believe this is a good deal for the american worker, so i am going ahead and voting for usmca. On the one hand there is that come on the other hand there is impeachment. Obviously it is sucking up a lot of the oxygen in this town. There is a lot of drama around it. If you are, again, nancy pelosi, it is important that you can demonstrate to the country that while you are going through impeachment, you are governing. Again, most importantly, this deal is good for the american worker, and that is why we need to get it done. Host Speaker Pelosi said they are that close. She said that, even if they are that close, there are still concerns about the current deal. What does that tell you about the politics of the situation . Guest it is all about getting the agreement right. The democrats are extremely committed to trying to fix nafta because after a million u. S. Jobs have been certified as going tota, with more mexico every week. Mexico is not being paid enough to have a decent standard of living. Emma kratz are committed, basic democrats are committed, working with the president there they are very unhappy. The problem is the president has stalled for an entire year about making these fixes, and they are not grandiose fixes. There are plenty of things in the agreement that if you wanted to make it perfect, you could fix. This is about making sure that the agreement could stop the race to the bottom outsourcing and not lock in prices. Yesterday he said that he wants to see it in writing but the administration will be offering fixing those kinds of problems. That is the right way to go. I have a questioning about the funding of phil sen. Cruz . About phils group. Would just say that ambassador lighthizer and his team at u. S. Cr and the white house has been working and cooperating in very good faith with the democratic leadership on the hill. You know, there has been a very constructive dialogue over the course of the last really six months, in particularly the last few months. Are meeting Speaker Pelosi and leadership more than halfway, so that is the reason we are as close as we are. We will see what the white house comes back with in terms of what they are willing to commit to on paper. It seems like we are close to getting this done. That will be a good thing for the american worker. Lets hear what the president had to say yesterday. Pres. Trump usmca is a great trade deal for farmers, manufacturers, all types, including union. It is sitting on Nancy Pelosis desk. She seems incapable of moving it. She keeps saying she wants to get it done, but were talking about many, many months, sitting on her desk, no vote. She does not to have she does not have to help with the democrats because they will vote for it, most of them. And i guess all of the republicans are going to vote for it. The way the system works, she has to put it up for a vote. I understand a couple of the cio, they areil asking her to hold it for a are askinge aflcio her to hold it for a while. Aflcio whoople in actually like richard trumka, nice guy. But nancy pelosi should put it up for a vote because soon you will have canada and mexico saying whats going on, send the agreement back, lets not make the deal. And i would not blame that on all that at all not blame them at all, lets blame it on nancy pelosi. It is a phenomenal deal for our farmers, for everybody. It is a great deal for our country. It replaces one of the worst trade deals ever made, nafta. So we have a great deal, she has to put it up for a vote. All she has to do is say we are putting it up for a vote. Like immediately. A lot of time is being wasted. You could have mexico and canada pull it pretty soon. If they do, it is her fault, not mind her to we give you a great deal. It is her fault. Got to get going. She is really traumatized. Thank you very much. Wallach, he put it directly in Speaker Pelosis court. Guest the speaker has worked very hard, as have other democrats, for over a year, to get the pharmaceutical monopolies out so they do not lock in high medicine prices. Those rules require every country in the agreement to get big pharma special protections so they do not have to have competition free generics. Is a lot of undermining of what the democrats happened to bring down medicine prices per they will not pass a bill that does not have that in it. The speaker has passed 300 pieces of legislation, so the notion that phil has mentioned that they need to show they are doing things is ridiculous. The it is on the desk of the grim reaper, phil mcconnell, who will not pass one. Ofporate coalitions are part the reason this has been stalled for so long. If you look at the big Corporate Coalition groups and the trade adjustment database and i know you want proof i brought the entire print out here. , half a million we are going to we are going to leave this conversation. U. S. House about her a goblin for a brief pro forma session with no vote scheduled. Live to the floor of the u. S. House. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc. , in cooperation with the United States house of representatives. Any use of the closedcaptioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u. S. House of representatives. ] the speaker pro tempore the house will be in order. The chair lays before the house a communication from the speaker. The clerk the speakers room, d. C. , november 26, 2019. Hereby appoint the honorable Debbie Dingell to act as speaker pro tempore on this day. Signed, nancy pelosi, speaker of the house of representatives. He speaker pro tempore the prayer will be offered by the
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