Statement: NAFTA Talks Should Continue Until a Good Deal Is Achieved
Statement of Lori Wallach, Director, Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch
Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, released the following statement upon the conclusion of today’s North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) ministerial meeting:
“Until a deal is achieved that eliminates NAFTA’s job outsourcing incentives and foreign tribunals exposing our laws to attack, and that adds strong labor and environmental standards with swift and certain enforcement to raise wages, talks should continue. The administration has been making progress on important elements of the major NAFTA replacement deal that is needed, and we hope they continue negotiating until they get a deal that would enjoy broad support.
Only a deal that eliminates NAFTA’s job outsourcing incentives and investor-state dispute settlement tribunals and adds strong labor and environmental standards with swift and certain enforcement can obtain broad support in Congress, a reality demonstrated by the Trans-Pacific Partnership falling dozens of votes short of passage in the previous Congress.
Certainly the continuation of the status quo of NAFTA helping corporations outsource more jobs to Mexico every week and attack health and environmental safeguards in secretive tribunals is not acceptable. President Trump promised to bring jobs back with a quick NAFTA renegotiation, but more important than a fast deal is the right deal that transforms the failed NAFTA model. Members of Congress, unions and small businesses, state legislators and consumer groups have articulated for decades the structural changes needed to NAFTA to reverse its outsourcing incentives, downward pressure on wages and attacks on our health and environmental laws.”
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