A majority of the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass the USMCA trade pact. CNBC's Kayla Tausche reports. The bill now goes to the Senate. The House passed a new North American trade deal on Thursday, ending a more than year long slog to iron out Democratic concerns about the agreement.
The chamber approved the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, one of President Donald Trump’s economic and political priorities, in an overwhelming 385-41 vote. Thirty-eight Democrats opposed it. The trade pact now heads to the Senate, which is expected to ratify it next year.
Most Republicans and Democrats have praised the latest version of the three-nation deal, which replaces the North American Free Trade Agreement. GOP lawmakers and key business groups said it will follow through on Trump’s promise to refresh NAFTA — though they have criticized concessions to the Democratic-held House on intellectual property standards.
“This is the first-ever trade coalition of workers, farmers, Republicans, Democrats, business and agriculture groups, organized labor and much more,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in a statement celebrating the vote.
Democrats cheered tools to boost enforcement of labor standards, saying they would deter companies from moving jobs to Mexico. Still, some lawmakers and unions have concerns the deal does not go far enough to stop American companies from outsourcing jobs.
USMCA tightens rules of origin for auto parts and requires a larger share of cars to be made by workers earning at least $16 per hour. It also increases access to Canadian dairy markets for American farmers and updates digital trade rules, among other provisions.
Canada and Mexico are the largest U.S. export markets.
Even before the House passed the agreement, Trump started to bill it as a political win as he campaigns for reelection in 2020. Democrats also wanted to show they can work with Trump only a day after they voted to make him the third president impeached in American history.
“This vote today is a reminder that, even while the House was working to hold the President accountable for his abuses of office, we were still working hard to deliver on our promises to the American people to focus on economic opportunity,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said ahead of the vote.
Speaking to reporters Thursday only hours after the impeachment vote, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi aimed to move focus away from the chamber charging Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. She cheered the trade deal and said it took time because “we weren’t going forward until we had the strongest possible enforcement.”
After a point in a news conference, Pelosi said she would not take any more questions about impeachment.
“Anybody care about that? Jobs for the American people?” she asked.
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