Scott Statement On Vote To Ratify USMCA

Statement

Congressman Bobby Scott (VA-03), the Chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor, issued the following statement after the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5430, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) Implementation Act:

"After months of tough negotiations between Speaker Pelosi and U.S. Trade Representative Lighthizer, I was pleased to see them reach an agreement in the current form of the USMCA. Last year, the Trump administration announced a version of USMCA that was deeply flawed. It would have locked in high prescription drug prices, exposed our environment and communities to dangerous pollution, accelerated the outsourcing of jobs, and it did nothing to protect the wages of American workers or the rights of our Mexican counterparts. While the current deal is still not perfect, it will strengthen environmental protections and improve labor standards through enforcement mechanisms that have been routinely absent from past trade deals.

"While the Trump administration is wrong to claim that this agreement will bring back hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs, USMCA's improved labor standards and unprecedented enforcement mechanisms can address the imbalances wrought by the race-to-the-bottom policies embodied in NAFTA and begin to level the playing field for workers across North America. As Chairman of the Committee on Education and Labor, I will be carefully reviewing the implementation of this Agreement to ensure Mexico abides by its labor commitments."

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