United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement Implementation Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, pursuant to the order of the House of December 16, 2019, I call up the bill (H.R. 5430) to implement the Agreement between the United States of America, the United Mexican States, and Canada attached as an Annex to the Protocol Replacing the North American Free Trade Agreement, and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
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Mr. HOYER. 5430.
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.
This vote today, Madam Speaker, is a reminder that, even while the House was working on a serious matter regarding the President's accountability for abuses of office, we were still working hard to deliver on our promises to the American people to focus on economic opportunity, and in this instance we were working together.
This USMCA agreement before us is a vast improvement over the first version shown to us by President Trump and his team. We worked together, and it now includes critically important changes offered by Democratic members in order to ensure that its enforcement mechanisms are stronger, that it protects American workers, and that it will help lower prescription drug costs and improve access to medications.
This agreement, Madam Speaker, will also remove some of the uncertainty created by the tariff policies that have been pursued by the President.
I am glad that our House Democratic working group was able to secure new provisions to ensure that America's trading partners uphold the rights of workers to unionize and bargain collectively. And I am glad that this agreement includes strong, rapid-response enforcement mechanisms that will allow us to block imports produced in facilities where these commitments are violated.
I, and this Congress, will be closely monitoring the enforcement of this new agreement to make certain that the administration is doing its job and workers' rights are protected.
I thank Speaker Pelosi, Chairman Neal of the Ways and Means Committee, and Ambassador Lighthizer, who represented the administration in his straightforward, honest way. Their hard work and negotiations with the White House to improve on the administration's initial draft were successful.
I thank, as well, the members of the Democratic working group who spent months working alongside the Speaker and chairman to fight for the provisions necessary to secure House support.
This agreement, Madam Speaker, is truly the product of bipartisanship with many victories for Democrats, of which all Americans can be proud, and obviously, victories for Republicans, as well. I hope we can approve it today with a strong, bipartisan vote of support.
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