USTR Lighthizer Says USMCA Approval Critical For Overall Trade Agenda

While the timeline for approval of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) agreement is still uncertain, the top U.S. trade official this week told US lawmakers that failure to approve it will have potentially far-reaching impacts. "If USMCA does not pass," U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told the House Ways & Means Committee this week, "it would be a catastrophe across the country. It would be very bad on every level, way beyond economics." That was a point that Lighthizer underscored to several lawmakers from several states who focused their questions on the trade deal with the U.S.' two closest neighbors. But Lighthizer as the hours-long hearing wound down, expanded the impact of failing to approve USMCA. "There is no trade program in the United States that we don't pass USMCA, there just isn't one," Lighthizer warned. Failure to approve USMCA would say that "we don't have a consensus and that we don't want to stand up for our workers and our farmers and our ranchers. I think there's no less than that at stake," Lighthizer stated. "We have an agreement. It's clearly better than its predecessor, there is no question." But, if it does not pass, he said in a rather stark observation, "you have no credibility at all – with China and you will have no credibility on any deals with your other trading partners." Conversations with more than one lawmaker take place every day on trade, Lighthizer stated, and they always have ideas and thoughts. "I always in the back of my head think, if we don't pass USMCA, just don't bother. Just sit down and just say we'll just wait a few years before we say anything," he lamented.