Mexican Minister of Foreign Affairs Marcelo Ebrard on Sunday said that the country would not accept a US proposal for steel and aluminum production under a new trade deal, as it would leave Mexico at a disadvantage.
During a meeting with senators to discuss details of negotiations for the US-Mexico-Canada treaty (USMCA), Ebrard said Washington proposed that 70 percent of steel for automobile production come from the North American region.
The proposal would put Mexico “at a very great disadvantage,” because vehicles produced in Mexico also use components made in Brazil, Japan and Germany, Ebrard said.
The Mexican delegation would ask at the next meeting of treaty representatives that the provision come into effect “more than five years” after the start of the trade pact, rather than immediately, he said.
Mexico would also not accept “any term” for aluminum provisions, because it does not have the resources to produce aluminum, Ebrard said.
Mexico is one of the world’s largest automobile exporters due to multiple brands — including General Motors Co, Nissan Motor Co, Fiat-Chrysler Automobiles NV and Volkswagen AG — building facilities in the country.
Ebrard’s comments come just a few days after Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said that he would not accept a US proposal for supervisors to oversee the implementation of Mexico’s labor reforms under the USMCA.
Mexico is the only country so far to ratify the new deal, negotiated at US President Donald Trump’s behest to replace the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement, which he considers “a disaster” for the US.
In a bid to comply with its commitments under the new deal, which was signed in November last year, Mexico has raised its minimum wage and passed labor reforms to give unions more power and workers more say in running them.
However, US labor groups and opposition Democrats in the US House of Representatives have voiced skepticism over the Mexican government’s ability to enforce the new rules.
That has resulted in a drawn-out ratification process in the US, where the trade deal now risks becoming mixed up in teh president’s ongoing impeachment drama and electoral politics heading into his re-election campaign next year.
Canada has said that it would ratify the deal in tandem with the US.
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