Inside US Trade reports:
A leader of the House working group on U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement labor issues told Inside U.S. Trade on Wednesday that he will be traveling to Mexico next weekend to discuss “panel blocking” with Mexican officials.
Many congressional Democrats have criticized USMCA for not changing NAFTA language that allowed parties to block the formation of dispute settlement panels. ...
Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-CA), one of the two Democrats in charge of handling the working group’s labor concerns, said he planned to have “pointed conversations” with Mexican officials next weekend on panel blocking “and a variety of other issues.”
...
Gomez said he did not know whether Mexico would agree to give up its right to block a labor-related dispute settlement panel.
“We’ll find out,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT). DeLauro, a longtime critic of free trade deals, co-chairs the working group’s enforcement section. “We’re talking it all through, all the various issues,” she said.
House Ways & Means Chairman Richard Neal (D-MA) said there will have to be movement on panel blocking if Lighthizer and House Democrats are to reach a deal.
“I think that Lighthizer’s done a terrific job and I think that he’s tried to accommodate all of our interests,” he told Inside U.S. Trade. “But I also think that as we kind of narrow the differences, there’s going to have to be some movement on that issue.”
It will be interesting to see how the conversation between the members of Congress and the Mexican officials goes. As this blog's readers know, the issue of panel blocking under NAFTA arose when the U.S. blocked a panel back in 2000. It is not clear whether Mexico (or Canada) would block a panel, as they have not done so previously. However, one can imagine that they might do so now in response to the U.S. action in 2000 (or in response to the U.S. blocking a USMCA panel in the future). Thus, for these members of Congress, worrying about whether Mexico might block a labor panel may not be the right way to think about the issue. Instead, the members of Congress might want to talk to Mexico about improving the dispute settlement provisions so as to prevent any party from blocking panels. Given that the Mexicans supported this idea during the negotiations ("We put forward proposals to facilitate the way Chapter 20 panels are composed, to make it quicker for the panels to be put into place and to institute procedural changes that make it more expeditious to get panels going. That was not accepted by the U.S."), working with them should not be too difficult.
