Negotiations to rewrite the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), dragged on for well over a year before culminating this fall in a new US-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA). The problem was the insistence of Canada's progressive, feminist Prime Minister Just In Trudeau, that any new agreement be a model of liberal ideology, putting social justice and the progressive agenda ahead of business and prosperity.
Mr Socks sent his lead negotiator, a former journalist named Chrystia Freeland, to the meetings with a shopping list of "non-negotiable demands" including new policies on climate change, gender equity, indigenous rights and other issues largely irrelevant to free trade, including (of course) measures to advance the liberal pro-queer agenda and protect "gay rights".
The USA and Mexico finally tired of being nagged about these non-issues and concluded an agreement on their own. See "
Payback for the Lady in Red - Trump set to stick it to Canada", WWW 28/8/18.
Faced with the prospect of being cut loose, the Canucks caved on a couple of the real issues -- the auto sector and supply management in their dairy industry -- and the new USMCA (aka NAFTA v2) was hastily signed. Cue sighs of relief in Ottawa and a certain amount of behind-the-hand snickering in Washington and Mexico City.
As a sop to the Canadian snowflakes, the new agreement includes a pledge that all three countries will support "policies that protect workers against employment discrimination on the basis of sex, including with regard to pregnancy, sexual harassment, sexual orientation, gender identity." Now that they've gotten around to reading the fine print, dozens of Republican lawmakers have noticed this clause and, on Friday, pronounced themselves unhappy with it.
According to POLITICO, 40 conservative congresspeople [Ed., is that what we're supposed to call them now?] have signed their names to a letter to President Trump urging him not to sign the agreement unless that language is removed.
Among the signatories are House Freedom Caucus chairman Mark Meadows, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) and Rep. Diane Black (R-TN), a member of the Ways and Means Committee. The coalition said the United States "has the right to decide when, whether and how to tackle issues of civil rights, protected classes and workplace rights" as a sovereign nation.
"A trade agreement is no place for the adoption of social policy," the letter continues. "It is especially inappropriate and insulting to our sovereignty to needlessly submit to social policies which the United States Congress has so far explicitly refused to accept."
Another signatory, Republican Doug Lamborn, has expressed concern congressional approval for USMCA could set a precedent “for activist courts” and he said in a statement Friday that Trump needed to remove the “troubling language … adopted behind the scenes.”
Before it can be put into effect, the new deal must be approved by Congress, but Friday's letter suggests POTUS could lose some Republican support for the agreement unless changes are made. In an interview with
POLITICO, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) referred to "troubling language...adopoted behind the scenes" and said "This is language that is going to cause a lot of people to reconsider their support of the trade agreement, and to the point that it may endanger the passage of the trade agreement unless something is done."
Walt agrees completely. The mere suggestion that America should base its labour and related policies on the liberal model lwhich is failing spectatularly in Sweden, the United Kingdom and, yes, Canada is nothing short of ridiculous. Let Americans -- and only Americans -- decide how to run the US of A. If Canada (and Mexico) want to play in the American league, they're going to have to play by American league rules!
Further reading (and viewing): "
CBC stunned by American prof's criticism of Chrystia Freeland", WWW 9/9/18. Includes video.
