Today, Congressman Henry Cuellar, Ph.D. (TX-28), released the following statement regarding the USMCA Joint Review:

“Six years ago, the United States, Mexico, and Canada put in place a trade agreement that has served American workers, farmers, and manufacturers well. Today the Administration has not renewed the USMCA which starts the clock on a decade of annual reviews and years of uncertainty over the rules that govern nearly two trillion dollars in trade across North America.

The trade agreement does not expire today. However, the US, Mexico, and Canada will undergo annual renegotiations. If we fail to come to an agreement, the USMCA will terminate on July 1, 2036. If this trade agreement ends, estimates expect a tax increase of about $300 per household and cost the country roughly 95,000 jobs. Our district feels it first. Laredo is the busiest land port of entry in the US, and when the rules of cross-border trade are thrown into question, it is the truckers, the customs brokers, the warehouse workers, and the producers of South Texas who carry the weight of that doubt. Supply chains are built on decades of planning, not on year-to-year guesswork.

The answer is not to retreat from this agreement. It is to strengthen it. I support a good-faith, trilateral negotiation that keeps all three partners at the table, preserves the enforcement tools that have protected American workers, and modernizes the agreement to meet today's challenges. I urge the Administration to engage Congress, our industry partners, and our workers throughout this process, and to negotiate in a way that reinforces this agreement rather than weakens it. Congress has the final word in terminating the agreement. The people of South Texas, and communities like ours across the country, are counting on it.”