The Biden administration fully supports the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement struck in the Trump-era but wants to make that pact and trade agreements in the Americas more worker-centric and beneficial to all countries in the hemisphere, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said Tuesday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 04th May, 2021) The Biden administration fully supports the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement struck in the Trump-era but wants to make that pact and trade agreements in the Americas more worker-centric and beneficial to all countries in the hemisphere, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai said Tuesday.
"For far too long, we have overlooked the effect of our trade policies on individual workers, who are human beings, living in a community trying to survive and thrive," Tai said at the Washington Conference on the Americas. "USTR's worker-centered trade policy that will foster broad-based, equitable growth, increase innovation, and give workers a seat at the table."
Tai acknowledged that free trade agreements in the past involving the United States have fallen short of promised gains and benefits and hoped there would be a better future for the USMCA, which was signed in 2019 with bilateral support from lawmakers in the Republican party led by Trump, and Democrats now led by Biden.
"These agreements show our close economic ties, and I am committed to using every tool available to make them work well for trade and to have a positive impact on real people," she added.
The principle of revisiting existing trade programs to make them better was particularly important with the cross-border challenges faced by the United States, Tai said, citing the crisis at the US southern border which had seen an influx of illegal migrants in recent months. Vice President Kamala Harris is coordinating US efforts to address the root causes of crisis, and has an additional $310 million in humanitarian relief for Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador the countries where some of the migrants have come from.
