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Washington, DC — Today marks the mandatory six-year review of the United States-Mexico-Canada trilateral trade agreement, known as the USMCA. With a long-term agreement to extend the deal highly unlikely, and no countries opting to leave the deal, USMCA will move automatically to annual reviews through 2036.
The USMCA was negotiated in Donald Trump’s first term as a revised version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). At the time USMCA was negotiated, Trump declared it “the greatest trade deal ever,” but the U.S. trade deficit with North American neighbors has increased under the deal and domestic manufacturing jobs have declined.
Sierra Club joined other climate groups in advocating for changes to the environmental chapter of USMCA, and more broadly in the agreement, that promote sustainable and resilient North American manufacturing by protecting the environment and the health of the public and workers. In particular, trade policy experts from Sierra Club and other environmental groups, alongside thousands of our grassroots supporters, have been pushing for the creation of a new environmental enforcement tool to ensure that factories that illegally pollute don’t have an unfair advantage over those that don’t include environmental exploitation in their business models.
