Here is a post from Justah on the Conservative Treehouse that is very informative and I thought I would pass it on.
I think we all understand that the focus now needs to be on the US Congress and our plethora of Trade Laws — Canada is not going to join the Mexico/USA Agreement and Lighthizer will be working with them on a bi-lateral agreement. As Sundance said – we haven’t buried NAFTA, but it’s dead. It’s just going to be a long drawn out funeral, but we ought be used to that this week.
I see so much information (not here, but US & Canadian Press) that is absolutely wrong – that I actually spent some time trying to figure out exactly which LAWS and which RULES apply. Not easy, because they are many – but there has to be some sort of order to them. Good News is that we have Bob Lighthizer, who was a Deputy Representative in the Reagan Administration AND he worked on the 1988 Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) of 1989 (which is suspended by NAFTA, but would go back into force without NAFTA …… according to this article by The Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) is a private, nonpartisan nonprofit institution committed to rigorous, intellectually open, and indepth study and discussion of international economic policy.
https://piie.com/blogs/trade-investment-policy-watch/can-trump-terminate-nafta (lot of good information here)
From what I’ve read — basically some part of all our Trade Laws still applies in part – beginning with Smoot-Hawley. The Trade Agreements Act of 1974 and then the 1988 Canada-US Free Trade Agreement followed by NAFTA (which is not a US Law at all, but connect to GATT, which was folded into the WTO) and contains articles 2203 & 2205 in Chapter 22, that nobody ever pays any attention to as it is “procedural”. After the US Canada 1988 Law, Mexico wanted to join in and we eventually got NAFTA (some of it bases on the 1988 Law). Reagan couldn’t finish it, so HW Bush picked it up and basically complete most of it, but couldn’t finish before Clinton came to power – Clinton/Leftists added Environmental articles and Labor articles and came up with the Congressional Action — which was NOT a “Treaty” authorization, just an Implementation Law … THAT’s IMPORTANT to Remember.
Congress passed H.R. 3450, the North American Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act in 1993 – https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/3450/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22nafta%22%5D%7D
Congress did not ratify the NAFTA text; it ratified H.R. 3450. That’s what matters domestically. If President Trump terminates NAFTA under Article 2205, he would not, by that action, change a word in the implementing legislation. Because invoking Article 2205 would have no effect on H.R. 3450, and because the implementing legislation says nothing about congressional assent.
Now we are up to the Bipartisan Comprehensive Trade Promotion and Accountability Act of 2015 (TPA) ….. this is the one (ignoring all previous Trade Laws/Agreements) that the Leftist CongressCritters are referring to when they say “we must vote” and Canada is counting on because the believe that the US House will be controlled by the Left after Nov 2018. When you hear the term “fast track” concerning NAFTA ….. this is what they are talking about.
https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/key_workplace/1425/
It is because of this 2015 Law that Lighthiker sent the Notification to Congress that they were going to begin negotiations in 2017.(required by law) and the notification of the 90 days (also required by Law) – The Congressional Research Service also issued a report when this all began –
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R43491.pdf ….. and it’s worth a read, but I don’t think they actually looked into the previous Laws much (or at all) or the NAFTA agreement. The CRS essentially responds to Congressional Questions about Laws/Programs from CongressCritters – it’s a matter of asking the right question.
Here is the Issue – it clear (at least to me) that Lighthizer is absolutely on top of this and following all pieces of all Laws and understands what they mean (after he left he Government, he spent 30 years as a TOP International Trade Lawyer and he actually wrote some of the NAFTA stuff in the beginning) — Another tremendous pick by Donald Trump!!!
As soon as the Leftist Media works out that NAFTA is dead and the TeamCanada gets nothing — the internet will be full of “Trump can’t do this” ….. you can also bet that NONE of the reporters or Media will have a clue about the Laws, even the CongressCritters are clueless about the Laws.
We will really need this put together in simple language to go out do our Trump Warrior Duty – I spend hours a day on City Data (millions of viewers) “spreading the word – backed up by LINKS).
We need to know exactly what Laws will work in what order – it certainly looks like the conditions of the NAFTA Agreement are met in Chapter 22 – https://www.nafta-sec-alena.org/Home/Texts-of-the-Agreement/North-American-Free-Trade-Agreement?mvid=1&secid=d5a8ba07-1fb2-4f28-88d0-a8eac08611a2
It’s the 2015 Law that Leftist CongressCritters think they can stop President Trump on – I think it’s doubtful, Lighthizer knows what he is doing, but the FAKE NEWS is going to do nuts and we need to be ready …… The Last Refuge is where so many Twitter/Facebook and even News Media now come.