WASHINGTON DC (April 18, 2019) — Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles "Chuck" Grassley of Iowa today released the following statement regarding the US International Trade Commission’s report on the economic impact of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), the renegotiated trade-deal to replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
“I appreciate the professional staff at the ITC for the enormous amount of hard work that went into this report. This is part of the TPA process mandated by Congress and is an important step for USMCA to become law. This is the first time the ITC has analyzed a renegotiated trade deal, let alone one of this size.
“I’m glad to see the report recognized USMCA’s new economic benefits. Many of the significant improvements in USMCA are reducing non-tariff barriers and implementing rules and fair practices that will help US workers, jobs, and businesses tremendously over the coming years. The USMCA makes critical updates to rules on intellectual-property, currency-practices, digital-trade, customs, state-owned enterprises, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and technical barriers to trade that will be valuable to many American farmers and businesses, even though their impact on GDP has historically been inherently difficult for economists to measure.
“I’ll conduct a thorough and thoughtful review of this and other studies of the economic impact of USMCA in the coming days and will be briefed by ITC officials early next week.”
