Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) insisted in a Hill.TV interview that there is strong bipartisan support for updating the North American Free Trade Agreement.
Democrats have been negotiating the terms of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) for months, but Arrington is optimistic that the trade deal will pass.
“We have unanimous, overwhelming bipartisan support,” Arrington, a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said during an interview that aired on Wednesday.
“I talked to my colleagues — Democrat colleagues and friends — from Texas and beyond and they’re all for it,” he continued before later adding, “I think it’s going to happen.”
Arrington said Republicans and Democrats have been able to reach an agreement on how to put a strong system in place for addressing issues like labor and the environment.
“They know it’s improved on the labor and environmental standards, which they were pretty sensitive to that going in,” he told Hill.TV referring to House Democrats. “They wanted to make sure those would be enforced. I think we have the belt and suspenders in place to ensure that that would happen.”
The Texas Republican added that it is now up to whether House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will bring the bill to the House floor for a vote.
Pelosi signaled this week that Democrats were “within range” of a USMCA deal with the White House.
“We are within range of a substantially improved agreement for America’s workers. Now, we need to see our progress in writing from the Trade Representative for final review,” she said in a statement on Monday.
President Trump, who first signed the deal late last year, previously accused Democrats of dragging their feet on signing the agreement with Canada and Mexico, repeatedly saying that their impeachment inquiry was holding up progress.
House Democrats are currently looking into whether Trump tried to pressure Ukraine into launching investigations into his political rivals. Trump has denied any wrongdoing, dismissing the probe as another “witch hunt.”
—Tess Bonn
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