This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at U Maine chapter.
NAFTA has been around for the past two decades but it looks as though its reign will be coming to an end very soon. The United States, Mexico, and Canada have reached an agreement on a new trade deal to take the pace of NAFTA. It’s called USMCA and here are the important changes you need to know:
- The USMCA will open up Canada’s dairy market to US farmers, and this a big win for American farmers as NAFTA limited how much dairy products could come in from the US.
- Mexico has agreed to allow their workers to collectively bargain.
- Car manufacturing will also be affected by the new deal. It requires that 75% of the car parts be made in North America, which will hopefully bring some manufacturing jobs back to the US.
- The agreement also requires that 40% of car or truck parts be made by employees that are earning at least sixteen dollars an hour, which would level the playing field between the US and Mexico for auto manufacturing.
- Lastly, there is a foreign exchange rate provision that sends a message to countries outside of North America that unfair currency manipulations will not be tolerated.