Cuellar Says Last-Minute Ask Throws Wrench in USMCA Negotiations
Texas voters send 36 members to the House of Representatives, and 18 attended a press conference Dec. 5 to say they want a U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement vote as soon as possible. But only one of the 13 Democrats in the Texas delegation attended -- Rep. Henry Cuellar, who represents Laredo and McAllen. Cuellar, the biggest booster of the new NAFTA in the Democratic caucus, said he'd been updated about the state of play between Mexicans and the U.S. trade representative at 9:30 a.m. that day, and “we're very, very, very close,” he said, but he said Mexicans tire of what they feel is a “one-more-thing”-style of negotiating from the Americans.
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"Yesterday, somebody asked for something else that has never been on the table, and that has affected the situation," Cuellar said during the press conference, and implied that without this last-minute ask, the deal would be done. "Wrap it up this week, we can get it done by the 20th of December," he said, when Congress leaves for Christmas. In an interview with reporters after the press conference, Cuellar said it wasn't House Democrats who made the ask. He would not say what it was, but said it was not related to internet companies' liability, Mexican truckers crossing into the U.S., or immigration. "The Mexicans said, 'We're not going to touch this issue,'" he said. "Hopefully, maybe they're meeting again. They were supposed to have met this morning, and maybe they'll meet this afternoon."
He held his fingers together to show a small gap. "They're like this close," he said, "but this new thing came up, and the Mexicans said, 'No, we're not going to do it.' And that got certain people upset."
House Ways and Means Committee ranking member Kevin Brady, R-Texas, said in an interview after the press conference that one of the primary topics of discussion this week was how to investigate complaints of labor violations at Mexican factories. He said Mexicans are trying to work out what he called a rapid-response dispute settlement. "If there is a valid complaint about a facility, how's a fair way to address it without breaching sovereignty, having a fair process in place, frankly a design that encourages companies to be in compliance all the time, and sort of certify," he said, similar to the trusted trader certification.
The penalty is under discussion, Brady said. "Certainly a country doesn't want to be in a worse position than not having an agreement at all, which is having products blocked automatically. That, too, is one of those really sensitive areas." Brady said he doesn't know if that's been resolved in the last day.
Cuellar said he tells some Democrats that Mexico will not allow American inspectors to go into Mexican plants on reports of a single violation -- "not recurring or continuous violations" -- "because it goes back to history. Remember, the U.S. took 55 percent of their territory [in the Mexican-American War], and they remember that like it's yesterday."
He said a three-person panel, with a Mexican, an American and a third person agreed-to by both, could investigate complaints. A penalty that blocks goods at the border "is not something Mexico will accept at all," he added. He said the panel could be expedited, so it doesn't take years to resolve a complaint.
Brady, when asked why 17 of the 18 Texas delegation members attending were Republicans, said, "bipartisan work in Texas has gone very well. There are still four or five in the Texas delegation that are not to a yes, so we're going to continue to work with them. Some are waiting to see how these negotiations conclude. There's no valid reason for a Texas lawmaker to oppose this new agreement. If you support NAFTA, this is a stronger agreement for the state than the existing agreement. We think it ought to be near-unanimous." He said that Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, a new Democrat from Houston, would be voting yes, even though she wasn't at the press conference. Her office did not respond to a request for comment.
"We believe that no state will gain more from this new agreement than Texas, and no state has more to lose if it doesn't pass," Brady said during the press conference.
Cuellar said he's tracking yeses, undecideds, those who are going to be no's no matter what, but didn't want to estimate how many Democrats want to vote to ratify. He said during the press conference, "It's been estimated by folks at CBP on the border that if we get this trade agreement, provide some sort of certainty, then the trade at a lot of the [land] ports in Texas will probably increase by 5 to 10 percent a year. And you know what that means, it means jobs for our side."
Rep. Will Hurd, a Republican who represents the longest stretch of the U.S.-Texas border, including Eagle Pass, said at the press conference that USMCA has geo-political import in the competition with China. "One way to deal with China is to strengthen our supply lines" in North America, he said. "It's time to show this place up here can actually get things done."