Senator Grassley
(R – Iowa) went to the Senate floor yesterday to send a message to both to the
Speaker of the House
of Representatives and to the world at large. The heart of that message is today’s featured quote. We have done our own transcript from the YouTube clip of the Senator’s short statement, and here it is.
Senator Grassley:
I’ve come to the floor many times to speak with my colleagues about the U.S.-Mexico trade agreement. I recently spoke with my colleagues in the House of Representatives and also officials within the Administration about the same subject. By all accounts, the deal is close on the U.S.-Mexico, United States-Mexico Trade Agreement. I urge House Democrats to act quickly and be reasonable so that we can finally deliver certainty on this issue to the American people.
It has now been more than a year since the leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States signed the agreement. So, Americans have waited a year for what can happen now to happen.
This modernized trade agreement will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs and help Americans grow wages for our workers. The end of this year’s legislative session is rapidly approaching, as we all know. If a deal cannot be reached by the end of this week, I do not see how the USMCA can be ratified in the year we are in. As it is, the window of opportunity for 2019 is extremely tight. Now is the time for the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives to finally act so that we can act here in the United States Senate.
It is hard to imagine this message coming from a more authoritative source. Chuck Grassley is the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the senior senator for a major agricultural state, Iowa, with an enormous stake in USMCA, and, as President pro tem of the Senate, the 3rd in line for the presidency after the Vice President and Speaker of the House.
One has to wonder, will Senator Grassley’s warning have the desired effect? Will there be a vote on USMCA in the next several days? Our answers to those questions would, of course, be pure speculation. We’ll save them for the comment section. While we are still in the business of providing context, however, it is worth noting, first, that other important players are weighing in and, second, that there does seem to be some movement, some shifts in positions.
Last week, for example, the
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador
of Mexico wrote again to
Speaker Pelosi
, urging action on USMCA. He had written earlier on October 8. In his more recent letter, dated November 26, President López Obrador underscored his commitment to fulfilling the labor related provisions of USMCA and called for action in the United States.
“Madam Speaker,”
he wrote
, “Mexico respectfully invites you to conclude this complex chapter between our countries … . [A]s I said in my October 8 letter, let us move forward with the USMCA promptly …”
As for the hints of movement, USTR is reportedly considering a rollback of the period of data exclusivity – the period of protection for biologics – from the 10 years of the current agreement to 8 years. That would be a win for Democrats. Add to that yesterday’s announcement that the House has added four more legislative days to the 2019 calendar, and there are reasons to believe, to hope, that bigger news may be in the offing.
