Ensuring NAFTA 2.0 (USMCA) Includes Protections for American Workers, the Environment, and Contains Strong Enforcement Measures
Adopted at the 87th Annual Meeting in 2019
WHEREAS, any changes to our nation's trade policy that do not take into account the impact to our working families directly threatens the economic vitality of our nation; and
WHEREAS, after a year of North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) renegotiations, a revised text was signed November 30, 2018; and
WHEREAS, the revised agreement includes some improvements, but includes unacceptable new terms for pharmaceutical firms that require that signatory governments guarantee pharmaceutical corporations monopoly powers to block generic competition, denying people access to lifesaving medicines including a 10-year marketing exclusivity guarantee for biologic drugs, and provide patent evergreening rights, which would lock the United States into bad policies that keep medicines, including critical cancer treatments, outrageously expensive and export our failed system to Mexico and Canada; and
WHEREAS, the NAFTA 2.0 text includes modest but meaningful labor standards gains, but further improvements to these standards are needed as well as significantly stronger enforcement to stop job outsourcing and downward pressure on wages; and
WHEREAS, the deal has rules to end wage-suppressing "protection contracts" in Mexico and Mexico has enacted labor law reforms to enact these terms, but funding and implementation of the new policy remains uncertain; and
WHEREAS, NAFTA 2.0 fails to require countries to adopt, implement and enforce domestic laws that achieve the goals of six core multilateral environmental agreements included in past U.S. trade pacts and the environmental terms included in the pact impose few binding obligations and are not subject to effective enforcement; and
WHEREAS, like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), NAFTA 2.0 fails to mention the words "climate change," much less address the social, economic and national security challenges presented by climate change; and
WHEREAS, NAFTA 2.0 eliminates the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) system with respect to Canada, and with respect to Mexico replaces it with a new process eliminating almost all substantive and procedural ISDS problems but preserves ISDS rights for some oil and gas firms to access the extra-judicial investor-state dispute resolution system to go before ad hoc tribunals to demand unlimited taxpayer compensation for Mexican domestic environmental and health policies; and
WHEREAS, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, two out of every five displaced manufacturing workers who were rehired in 2017 experienced a wage reduction with one out of every four displaced manufacturing workers taking pay cuts of greater than 20 percent; and
WHEREAS, failed U.S. trade policies that have dramatically boosted corporate power and harmed workers, consumers and the environment require a complete transformation,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that The United States Conference of Mayors calls on Congress to ensure that legislative action on the revised NAFTA not advance until it includes measures to protect America's working families and the environment and includes adequate enforcement; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, a vote on the revised NAFTA should not be held unless and until Mexican labor law reform is funded and implementation underway,
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, a vote on the revised NAFTA should not be held unless and until the text of the agreement signed on November 30, 2018 is modified to eliminate special protection for Big Pharma that extend monopoly rights beyond the original NAFTA; strengthen labor standards and ensure their swift and certain enforcement; strengthen environmental standards and ensure their swift and certain enforcement; and eliminate special rights for oil and gas corporations to use Investor-State Dispute Resolution to demand taxpayer compensation for domestic environmental and health policies.