MEXICO: US Senators Call For Stricter USMCA Enforcement

Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Mike Crapo (R-ID), the chair and ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee have urged the Biden administration to force Canada and Mexico to comply with USMCA regulation in energy and agricultural policy.

• The Senators wrote in a letter to USTR Katherine Tai: “The Office of the United States Trade Representative must continue to pursue full implementation and, where necessary, robust enforcement [of the USMCA].”
• The senators added that the USTR, “must ensure that the United States gets what it bargained for” saying that the “full potential [of the USMCA] remains unrealized.”
• The letter comes as the US, Canada, and Mexico fail to make significant progress towards resolving a dispute over Mexico’s energy policy which Washington and Ottawa claim unfairly prejudices non-Mexican energy firms.
• Aindriu Colgan, director of tax and trade policy at the American Petroleum Institute, whose members include Chevron and ExxonMobil, said earlier this month that a dispute panel must be invoked because, “Mexico is blatantly violating the USMCA.”