Immigration between NAFTA Nations

The United States, Canada, and Mexico are continuing to make positive progress in an agreement of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Recently as of the 23^rd of this month, there has been an assembly of Central Americans made up of mostly women and children who are seeking asylum in the United States from gang threats and political persecution that have gotten very bad. Mexico who has very strict laws on immigration, and is drawing attention from President Trump who tweeted that he would like to make an immigration policy part of the new NAFTA. Trump later tweeted; ”Despite the Democrat inspired laws on Sanctuary Cities and the Border being so bad and one sided, I have instructed the Secretary of Homeland Security not to let these large Caravans of people into our Country. It is a disgrace. We are the only Country in the World so naive! WALL”. After this news I had two different thoughts about the situation. One being, these people are under political prosecution and living in unsafe environments for families and children. The other way of looking at this is that they are able to seek safe harbor in their own country before migrating to our country illegally. The director of Homeland Security said that the United States will continue to prosecute illegal immigrants as they normally would and that additional actions are being taken by the DHS to reinforce our border at this time.

http://fortune.com/2018/04/25/trump-nafta-canada-mexico/

http://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-migrants-caravan-closer-border-2018-htmlstory.html

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/23/trump-caravans-border-nafta-545624

NAFTA Negotiations Reaching Close, according to Vice-President Pence

After a meeting in Lima, Peru, United States Vice-President Pence stated that NAFTA Negotiations are reaching a close. Although no consensus has been reached, tensions have been relieved in the recent weeks.

Over several months, negotiations have persisted with Canada having threatened to leave the trade partnership. This issue was sparked days after of US President Donald Trump commenting that the US will "get tough" on trade in his State of the Union Address. Although trade negotiations have been targeted primarily at Mexico, In response, Canadian Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau stated that Canada wouldn't "take any old deal".

This comes at stark contrast with the latest news of great progress. While a timeline has not been established, tensions seem to be relieved and work is being made toward a deal. The timeline may become an issue in the near future with the Mexican Presidential Election on the horizon. However, Mexico's economy minister said there is an 80% chance of a deal by the end of may.

Automobile wage requirements

With the latest of the NAFTA, President Trump is looking to require automobiles made by NAFTA members to contain components made by workers making specific wages in order to qualify for NAFTA’s preferential tariffs. Mexico will most likely elect a new presidential candidate that has criticized Trump for his broadsides of Mexico in November causing Trump to want to make a deal before that new leader takes office. United States is trying to pass a tariff that is aiming at using domestically produced metals instead of paying the cheap import price from overseas. An interesting fact that I found in this NYTimes article was that Canada is one of the top suppliers of metal for the United States military. With president Trump calling NAFTA a joke in the recent past, it seems that Mr. Trudeau is a little more optimistic with the direction that NAFTA is heading and thinks things are heading in a positive direction

Minnesota Supports NAFTA

Minnesota's two largest export markets are touting the benefits of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which may be headed for a renewal in Washington, D.C., as early as next month. Canadian Consul General Paul Connors and Mexican Consul Gerardo Guerrero have been expressing their support for NAFTA to Minnesota factories, farmers and workers, Minnesota Public Radio reported . Minnesota's trading partners helped the state's turkey industry survive when it faced the avian flu in 2015, said Shawntera Hardy, commissioner of the state Department of Employment and Economic Development.

"One of the countries that stepped up and said, 'We'll still buy your good turkeys,' was Mexico. And they helped us weather that storm," Hardy said.

The state's turkey industry is the largest in the U.S., worth nearly $1 billion. About one-seventh of the state's turkeys are exported. Minnesota imported an estimated $10 billion worth of products from Canada last year and exported $4.3 billion. Minnesota imported $2 billion from Mexico and exported $2.4 billion, according to DEED.

Those numbers would look differently without NAFTA, Guerrero said.

"Turkey would pay a tariff of 10 percent," Guerrero said. "Cheese 45 percent. So with NAFTA, all the exports to Mexico are free trade." When adjusted for inflation, the NAFTA export market has grown about 50 percent in Minnesota since 1994, Hardy said. Gov. Mark Dayton also sent a letter supporting a new NAFTA to Washington in February. Labor union AFL-CIO is pushing for tougher labor laws as part of the deal.

"We're going to keep fighting for a trade model that's different, that isn't just answerable to corporate interests, but is really answerable to ordinary families in all three NAFTA countries," said Celeste Drake, the labor organization's trade policy specialist in Washington, D.C.

Trump's extreme proposal and how it will affect NAFTA

under the current NAFTA about 62% of the parts in a car sold in North America must come from the region, it doesn't matter if the parts come from Canada or Mexico or the U.S. but they must be sourced from within the country. Trump's trade team wants to raise that number up to 85%, Trump's negotiators are proposing that half of the auto parts sourced from North America come from the United States and the rest go to Mexico and Canada. Trump's greediness is going to make a lot of enemies for him, if this goes through it means that the U.S. gets half and Mexico and Canada both only get a quarter. Mexican economy secretary Ildefonso Guarjado told CNNMoney last April that a U.S. specific rule would be unacceptable. In November, Canadian foreign minister Chrystia Freeland referred to this as one of Trump's extreme proposals and that Canada would not agree to this. The amount of vehicles and auto parts that come into the U.S. from Mexico make up the vast majority of the U.S. trade deficit with Mexico and Trump's top priority for a new deal destroys that deficit.

Pretty much every country in the world now has an obesity crisis. But no one’s really figured out what to do about it. One of the most avant-garde obesity policy experiments is happening in Chile, where health officials are trying to revolutionize nutrition labeling. Instead of cramming percentages and numbers onto the back of food packages, the Chilean government now requires symbol-based warning labels on the front of food products that contain high levels of salt, sugar, calories, and saturated fat.

Canada, where 26 percent of adults have obesity, has taken notice. It’s now on the cusp of becoming the second high-income country to adopt a similar warning system. Meanwhile, Mexico, which has called overweight, obesity, and diabetes public health emergencies, is also considering following 

Chile’s lead, but these new approaches in Mexico and Canada may never see the light of day if the American trade representatives get their way.

Welcome to the opaque — and somewhat surprising — intersection of obesity and the North American Free Trade Agreement renegotiation.

According to a leaked document, US trade representatives are seeking to override national food labeling policies in Mexico, Canada — as well as in the US — through the NAFTA renegotiation.

Specifically, the US is proposing a provision about packaged food and non-alcoholic beverages that suggests that countries involved in the trade deal should not adopt front-of-package symbol warnings that “inappropriately denotes that a hazard exists from consumption of the food or non-alcoholic beverages.” The New York Times first reported on the provision Tuesday

On Wednesday, in a House Ways and Means Committee meeting about America’s trade agenda, the United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, confirmed that he is indeed pursuing this provision, arguing that national food labeling policies are “protectionist.”

But public health researchers and concerned lawmakers like Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Tex) see the provision another way: as a threat to the battle against obesity.

Mexican Peso and Canadian Dollar, Jump on Optimism for NAFTA Deal

The Canadian dollar and the Mexico peso rose on optimism that the U.S. may be softening some of its hard-line stance in the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement. A report in the Globe and Mail said that the U.S. dropped demands for the inclusion of 50 percent U.S. content in automobiles, which is seen as the most contentious issue in the talks. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also said Wednesday that he remained optimistic Canada would get a good deal in the NAFTA renegotiation. 

With the US dropping a large amount of tariffs against China this week, the US prospected that a 25 percent tariff would be dropped from mexico on import steel and aluminum. This is causing the Canadian dollar to rise to 1.30 and the peso to rise 18.60. NAFTA still has a long way to go, but this is a step in the right direction. 

With this being said, these renegotiation's are causing some volatility between NAFTA and the US. Although, US withdrawal is unlikely, there is always a potential threat of the US looking for its best interest.

NAFTA Metals Tariffs

The recent aluminum and steel tariff plan that President Trump is trying to implement has received some backlash from both sides, in Canada and Mexico. President Trump is trying to negotiate with both countries to avoid a tariff on both steel and aluminum. The tariff would be 10% on aluminum and 25% on steel imports and has many countries outraged about this idea. Trump explains that we have lost 800 billion over the past year because of trade and feels that the tariff would help states that are getting cheated due to the cheap imports of steel and aluminum. States such as Pennsylvania where there is a steel and aluminum workers feel that they are being cheated and are not allowed the opportunity to produce and compete on a level playing field against importing prices. With the massive trade deficits with Canada and Mexico, Trump feels that this will help with the way that jobs have been relocated and may result in a better treatment of American farmers by Canada and encourage Mexico to do more on stopping drug smuggling.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/03/05/trump-new-and-fair-nafta-pact-only-way-to-stop-steel-aluminum-tariffs.html

A little Intro to NAFTA and Then Some

Formed in 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement is the holy trinity of trade between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. The three countries came together to establish a standard operating procedure when trading between them. So far it has proven to be effective, however, the point of this blog is to monitor exactly how effective the trade agreement is between these countries.