Saving Seafood

What You Need To Know: USMCA Enters Into Force TODAY, Wednesday, July 1

July 1, 2020 — The following was released by The White House:

TODAY, Wednesday, July 1, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) enters into force.The USMCA delivers on President Trump’s promise to replace the outdated North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with a 21st century trade deal that marks the beginning of a historic new chapter for North American trade by supporting more balanced, reciprocal trade, leading to freer markets, fairer trade, and robust economic growth in North America. The Agreement contains significant improvements and modernized approaches to rules of origin, agricultural market access, intellectual property, digital trade, financial services, labor, and numerous other sectors. These enhancements will deliver more jobs, provide stronger labor protections, and expand market access, creating new opportunities for American workers, farmers, and ranchers. On June 29, 2020, President Trump signed a Proclamation to take certain actions under USMCA Implementation Act. You can find the full proclamation here. You can also find additional details on the U.S. Customs & Border Protection work to implement USMCA here.

With today’s entry into force, the USMCA will help address longstanding trade imbalances. Key provisions include:

  • More North American Auto Content: Under USMCA’s rules vehicles must be built with at least 75 percent of parts made in North America in order to qualify for zero tariffs, up from 62.5 percent under NAFTA. Also, 40 to 45 percent of an auto will have to be made by workers earning at least $16 an hour. Recent USTR analysis estimates that these rules will incentivize billions in new U.S. automotive investment and in new purchases of U.S.-made auto parts, and support tens of thousands of additional jobs in the U.S. automotive sector. Read the analysis here.
  • Increased Agricultural Market Access: The USMCA provides the U.S. with greater access to Canada’s dairy, poultry, and egg markets. Combined with other agricultural provisions in the agreement, the independent International Trade Commission estimates that, as a result of USMCA, U.S. agricultural exports to Canada and the rest of the world would increase by $2.2 billion.
  • Small and Medium Sized Businesses: The USMCA contains the first chapter of any trade agreement dedicated to Small and Medium Enterprises. The chapter will enforce new intellectual property provisions, bolster innovation, and support small businesses engaging in digital trade. Additionally, USMCA removes burdensome regulations, reduces duplicative red tape, and lowers costs that will help the 30 million U.S. small businesses that employ half the private-sector workforce and create two-thirds of all new jobs, to better compete globally.
  • Enhanced Labor and Environmental Rights: The USMCA makes a number of significant upgrades to NAFTA’s environmental and labor provisions, incorporates them into the core of the agreement, and makes them fully enforceable, which will help level the playing field for U.S. workers and businesses.
  • Addresses Non-Market Practice and Unfair Subsidies: The agreement includes countless rules that directly address the pernicious and growing challenge of unfair subsidies and non-market practices that have the potential to disadvantage U.S. workers and businesses. These include new and enforceable provisions covering state-owned enterprises, currency manipulation, anticorruption, and combatting duty evasion.
  • Increased Intellectual Property Protections: USMCA dramatically enhances intellectual property protections. It contains a modernized, high-standard IP chapter that provides strong and effective protection and enforcement of IP rights critical to driving innovation, creating economic growth, and supporting American jobs.
  • Strongest Provisions on Digital Trade: The USMCA includes a first-of-its-kind chapter on digital trade that – among other things – ensures data can be transferred across borders and cracks down on data localization measures used to restrict where data can be stored and processed.

More on USMCA: Canada and Mexico are our first and third largest exports markets for United States food and agricultural products, making up 28 percent of total food and agricultural exports in 2017.  These exports support more than 325,000 American jobs. In November 2018, President Trump signed the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) delivering on his promise to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and protect American farmers, ranchers, businesses, and workers. The USMCA is a 21st century, high-standard agreement that modernizes the 25-year-old NAFTA and supports mutually beneficial trade leading to freer markets, fairer trade, and robust economic growth in North America. can find the Agreement’s Text here, pertinent Fact Sheets here, and Support from External Stakeholders here and here.

The Trump administration is ensnared in another border dispute — this time with Canada

August 13, 2018 — Canadians often boast that their 5,525-mile boundary with the United States is the longest undefended border in the world. But tempers have frayed on at least one small stretch.

Machias Seal Island is a 20-acre, treeless island teeming with puffins, razorbills, terns, eiders and other seabirds, making it a prime destination for birdwatchers. Canada and the United States both claim sovereignty over the island, which is about 10 miles off the coast of Maine, and the surrounding 277-square-mile Gray Zone, where fishermen from both countries compete over valuable lobster grounds.

In late June and early July, Canadian fishermen said, U.S. Border Patrol agents in speedboats intercepted Canadian lobster boats in the Gray Zone.

“I have no idea where they came from,” said Laurence Cook, a lobsterman and representative of the Fishermen’s Association from nearby Grand Manan Island. “We’ve never seen U.S. Border Patrol in the Gray Zone before.”

Read the full story at The Washington Post

Canadian tariffs on US goods go into effect, but spare seafood industry

July 3, 2018 — Canada has placed tariffs valued at CAD 16.6 billion (USD 12.6 billion, EUR 10.8 billion) on American products as retaliation for a 25-percent tariff on steel and 10-percent tariff on aluminum the United States instituted earlier this year by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Canada’s tariffs took effect 1 July – Canada Day. While the new tariffs affect goods ranging from beer kegs to ball point pens, orange juice to candy to bourbon, they appear to have largely spared the seafood industry.

It’s an extraordinary situation for the two countries which traditionally tout their undefended border, close relationship, and are the world’s second-largest trading block.

More than USD 1.5 billion (EUR 1.3 billion) in goods and more than 300,000 people cross the U.S. Canada border every day. The value of trade crossing the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan is equal to all of Japan’s exports to the U.S. Canada is a bigger market for U.S. goods than the 27 countries of the European Community. For example, 4,000 shipments of ingredients for Campbell’s Soup products cross from the US into Canada each day and 3,500 travel from Canada into the U.S.

Since introduction of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1985, there has been a 350 percent rise in trade between the U.S. and Canada. Canada is one of the top five investor nations in the U.S. and is America’s primary energy source (oil, natural gas, and electricity), while Saudi Arabia is number three.

Read the full story at Seafood Source