Dear Members of Congress,
ALEC Action[1] is pleased to present the undersigned members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) who support swift Congressional approval of USMCA. Each day without USMCA implementation delays American farmer access to Canadian markets, undermines American innovation due to inadequate intellectual property (IP) protections, and forces American workers to compete with underpaid Mexican workers who are subject to undemocratic, employer-dominated unions that keep wages artificially low.
ALEC model policy supporting USMCA can be found here.
The enhanced North American commerce that was facilitated by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been an economic boon to all three countries and has contributed to greater political stability in Mexico. Prompt Congressional approval of the recently negotiated United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will assure that the trilateral trade partnership will seamlessly continue to promote to economic growth on the North American continent.
USMCA is superior to NAFTA in multiple respects:
- Trilateral North American trade is an integral part of the US economic landscape, and ratification of USMCA would only enhance the already considerable benefits. Every state will share in the rewards of USMCA.
- Forty-three states count Canada and/or Mexico as their first or second export market and all but one state count Canada or Mexico as a top three trading partner. Trade with Canada and Mexico supports nearly 12 million American jobs, and ratification of USMCA will lead to the creation of 176,000 new American jobs according to the International Trade Commission (ITC) analysis released earlier this year.
- NAFTA led to a quadrupling of trade to $1.3 trillion with our North American partners which currently buy more than one-third of US merchandise exports.
According to the ITC study, all industry sectors will benefit from USMCA ratification. Manufacturing would experience “the largest percentage gains in output” and the services sector would have “the largest gains in output and employment” in absolute terms. Companies of all sizes would reap the rewards of the new digital services provisions, however small to medium-sized enterprises which rely heavily on digital trade to sell their products globally will benefit disproportionately. Digital trade accounts for $1.3 trillion toward US GDP and supports more than five million high-paying American jobs.
USMCA will stand out as the only trade framework to which the United States is a party that contains a digital chapter. The Agreement’s IP chapter is widely regarded as containing the highest standard IP provisions of any trade framework in existence today and will inform future free trade agreements for years to come.
An ALEC statement on the USMCA IP chapter can be found here.
We the undersigned applaud the Administration’s lifting of steel and aluminum tariffs on Canada and Mexico, although we are disappointed in the ways the Agreement breaks with free-market orthodoxy on labor and environmental issues as well as the abandonment of the protections afforded by the Investor State Dispute Settlement mechanism. While we are not fully supportive of these provisions, we support their overarching goal of leveling the playing field for American workers and certain industries and hope that these concessions will help to unite lawmakers from both sides of the aisle to rally behind USMCA.
The States are the ultimate stakeholders for any trade framework. Free trade agreements negotiated with a strong adherence to free markets that allow American industry to thrive benefit the States and their economies, and USMCA will be good for the States. We the undersigned representing ## states and ### Americans have determined that USMCA will spur American economic growth and respectfully urge Congress to approve it without delay.
Very respectfully,
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[1] ALEC Action is the official advocacy organization 501(c)(4) affiliated to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) 501(c)(3).
