US Proposes Renegotiating Trade Deal with Mexico

Expert from the US calls for renegotiating trade deal with Mexico. Jamieson Greer, the US Trade Representative, has stated the need for separate negotiations with Mexico and Canada, citing different problems with treaty compliance. He argues that Mexico, as a smaller country with a struggling economy, depends on a clear and unambiguous rules-based system. This involves restructuring the USMCA into two parallel agreements due to differing commercial and security agendas with Mexico and Canada, and negotiating a new body to replace the WTO. In Project 2025, which has served as the operating manual for Trump's second term, it is established that it is essential to replace the free trade regime with a fair trade system to end abuses by China and other countries against US producers and to define new international rules that restore America's hegemonic position. In reality, the USTR has avoided acknowledging that the country's trade deficit is due to the structural conditions of its economy. Among the conclusions of the foreign trade chapter is the need to implement a new body to replace the World Trade Organization (WTO) with more balanced rules that no longer benefit non-market economies, as well as the negotiation of new bilateral agreements. Last week, the United States Trade Representative (USTR), Jamieson Greer, reiterated in two different forums that the Trump administration is working to redefine the rules of the current international trade regime to end the discrimination suffered by US companies by other countries, which has resulted in the trade deficit that the US economy has been dragging for 50 years and the loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector. Canada has not yet joined. Since his first term, Trump made it clear his intention to end the free trade regime and eliminate any international body. Greer must inform Congress on June 1st whether the US intends to remain in the treaty, eventually withdraw from it, or denounce it, with its exit taking effect in six months. Greer has been saying on various occasions that Trump is not happy with the treaty, despite having said at one point that it was the best trade deal the US had ever negotiated in its history, and has avoided mentioning the decisive support of the private sector across the region for the continuation of the USMCA as a trilateral instrument. It is worth noting that Mexico was one of the 22 countries that signed the extension proposed by the United States, along with Japan, the United Kingdom, and Australia. It started by blocking proposals to replace members of the WTO's Appellate Body, which the Biden administration continued without proposing an alternative. The USTR argues that there is no point in reviewing the moratorium on digital trade tariffs every two years and instead dedicating more time to other issues that have been unresolved for longer. One cannot depend on being the friend of the biggest kid on the playground. Trump has taken some measures in this regard, such as facilitating operations in the oil industry to reduce crude oil imports, but this does not solve the lack of critical minerals not found in US territory. The next day, The Wall Street Journal published an editorial where Greer complains about the lack of results after the 14th Ministerial Conference of the WTO, held three weeks ago, calling the organization a failed, ineffective, and dysfunctional entity, so the United States will chart its own course in international trade, regardless of the support or cooperation of other countries. Greer has mentioned the idea of having a system like GATT, although he has never said that its decisions were binding as those of the WTO.