House Democrats Say Lighthizer Knows Changes Need to Be Made to Get Their Votes

House members that are leaders on trade, in the center and on the left, say that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is recognizing the ways he's going to need to change the new NAFTA to get Democratic votes, but it's not yet clear how far he'll be willing or able to go. Wisconsin's Rep. Ron Kind, a New Democrat and free trader, said in a hallway interview with International Trade Today May 10, "We're kind of at an impasse. They keep telling us there's no way they can open this up and tweak it, and make this minor adjustment and we're saying ... we haven't met a trade agreement yet where members of Congress weren't allowed to get our fingerprints on it a little bit, massage it here and there for it to get to 218 [votes]. So, until somewhat blinks on that front ... ."

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the Washington state Democrat who co-chairs the Progressive Caucus, said after Lighthizer left a caucus meeting the afternoon of May 9 that he's looking for a group of Democrats he can negotiate with to decide on changes. "He feels like there has to be a give-and-take; it's hard to do that with 435 people," she said. Lighthizer had met with the Progressive Caucus before, and many of the questions and answers were the same, she said. But, she said, that doesn't mean she thinks there's no progress. "What I heard today that was different is a willingness to sit down and try to work things out, though when I said, 'Does that mean you're open to renegotiating the agreement?,' he did not answer that question."

Many Democrats -- not just the trade skeptics -- believe that the new NAFTA's text has to be edited to change a 10-year data exclusivity period for biologics drugs. In response to a question from International Trade Today on what period would be acceptable to the Progressive Caucus, Jayapal said, "Something less than 10. So is it eight, is it five? You know, I think the question really is: How do we stay true to our promise to the American people to bring down the price of pharmaceutical drugs? In order to do that you can't have this exclusivity for such a long time. He says he's not changing anything in U.S. law right now, but it locks us in in a way that's not helpful. Why would we do that? Let's see where we get to."

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, said, "He seems genuinely concerned with securing Democratic votes, so it's no surprise that the key issues from my perspective and I heard mentioned the most are assuring that our hands are not tied in lowering drug prices by the language that's in the agreement on exclusivity and the definition of biologics. And assuring that the changes that he is securing in Mexican law on labor have meaning, and that they're enforced. And finding a reasonable way to ensure that enforcement occurs when breaches occur. And I think if we can work through those two areas, that we can get broad support for the agreement, and I hope we can do that."

Doggett says Lighthizer said again in the meeting that biologics can be addressed outside of the core text. "I don't see how that would work, but he at least is affirming that it is not his intent to limit the ability of Congress to regulate drug prices," he said.

In a hallway interview May 10, Lou Correa, D-Calif., said that although the passage of historic Mexican labor reforms was very important, he would like to see worksite inspections something like in the Brown-Wyden bill (see 1904050050).

Doggett said Brown-Wyden came up in the caucus meeting. "I think there are some objections from the Mexicans to that approach which seems to give unilateral authority to the United States," he said, and he says those are justified, given the history. But, he said, Democrats have to have a way to be sure that the promises in the new labor law "actually happen. That's an area where more work has to be done."

Correa said he knows Mexican officials are saying they don't want to alter the agreement's enforcement planks, and the U.S. can check on the progress at the six-year review, and renegotiate then if they're not satisfied, but he would rather see additional enforcement tools now. "My constituents are very much interested in that," he said. "I think there's always room to renegotiate things."

Rep. Andy Levin, D-Mich., said before he'd be a yes vote, he needs to see that Mexico follows through on its labor reforms. "We've been burned so many times in other trade agreements," he said. "Mexico has 700,000 protectionist contracts. In the United States, our National Labor Relations Board conducts a few thousand elections a year. Mexico needs to do 175,000 a year for four years, and it's something they've never done."

While he said that the Mexican administration is very well-intentioned, "the United States government doesn't have the resources to do 175,000 of those a year here. We'd have to ramp up, hire staff," he said. "I just want to see that it can really happen. I don't need to see 175,000 all done, but I need to see it's really changing in a systematic way and the capacity to do it is there."

Kind said he thinks Lighthizer has not been able to float changes to satisfy Democrats because he's trying to juggle so many other negotiations. "He's been consumed with China these days," he said, though Lighthizer did squeeze in this meeting on the Hill an hour before he was to meet with Chinese negotiators.

Kind said USTR is not informing free-trade Democrats about the state of negotiations with Canada and Mexico to replace steel and aluminum tariffs on their countries with quotas. "The [Section] 232s just continue, and that's wreaking a lot of economic damage in our respective districts. I had record family farm bankruptcies last year in Wisconsin. It's not completely due to the tariffs, but that's piling on right now, it hasn't been helpful. Until we get clarification on how that's going to get resolved, there's not a whole lot of energy to move forward on USMCA by us, or Canada or Mexico, for that matter."

"That's why I and others introduced bipartisan legislation to get Congress back in the game when it comes to the imposition of 232 national security tariffs, so it's not just one guy who's ornery at the White House doing this to our country," Kind said.

Correa agreed that USTR is overloaded. "I think the administration has a lot of irons in the fire right now, you've got the Chinese deal, you've got NAFTA 2, bilateral Japan, Europe ... you have so many things going on right now. And you kind of have to do them all soon. My district relies on NAFTA, my state relies on NAFTA, this country relies on NAFTA. Just a couple of weeks ago, Mexico became our biggest trading partner. There's a lot of jobs in my district that depend on trade. Let's bring this stuff to closure," he said.