LABOR/NAFTA/TRADE DEALS: “U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and aides have been consulting with American unions and congressional Democrats over the past few weeks to assemble new proposals aimed at boosting Mexican workers’ rights and wages in talks to overhaul the North American Free Trade Agreement.
The intensifying consultations with labor are part of a gambit to reshape trade politics by winning big Democratic support for the administration’s approach to the Nafta talks, which resumed this week in Mexico City. The Democrats’ votes would be needed to win approval for any new deal, given the criticism the administration’s blueprint for remaking Nafta has drawn criticism from big business.
Big labor hasn’t been happy either with every aspect of the Trump approach. But while U.S. negotiators have largely ignored complaints from the Chamber of Commerce and its allies, they are actively working with the AFL-CIO and its backers to try to satisfy their demands… The Trump administration’s renewed focus on beefing up labor rights points to an evolving strategy in the negotiations. President Donald Trump and aides have in recent weeks softened threats to blow up the agreement, following fierce lobbying from agriculture, business, and congressional free-traders warning of economic calamity if the 24-year-old pact collapses… But the White House is holding fast to a definition of ‘progress’ that has rankled business groups and both Mexico and Canada, one that tries to recast the agreement in ways long demanded by U.S. unions, who blame Nafta for encouraging outsourcing.”
-Jacob M. Schlesinger, “Trump Officials Court Democrats Amid Nafta Talks,” The Wall Street Journal online, Feb. 28, 2018 07:00am