USMCA May End, but Free Trade in North America Will Not: Experts
Though the future of USMCA is unclear, the U.S., Mexico and Canada are too interdependent for the Trump administration to abandon free trade in the continent, according to experts speaking at a Nov. 14 event hosted by the Quincy Institute.
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Arturo Sarukhan, the former ambassador from Mexico to the United States, said that the future of USMCA is "going to be a bumpy ride," and that there is a "real possibility" that the current agreement could "go the way of the dodo." However, while he cautioned that "anything is possible" with the Trump administration, it is unlikely that "we're facing a scenario where we will end up with no FTAs in North America."
The Trump administration's goal of recalibrating its trade relationship with China "needs Canada and Mexico as part of the paradigm," Sarukhan said.
Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association of Canada, agreed that trade between the three countries is not going anywhere, saying that there are "enough people in all three countries who form the critical mass that will guarantee that we will have a USMCA." He said it may "be disguised" as two or three bilateral treaties but that "ostensibly the language is going to be a facilitator for continued integration."
Volpe said that even if the USMCA collapses, "50 years from now, the U.S. will still be 75% of our export market." He said that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is "spending a lot of time" telling Canadians that the country needs to find new markets, but the business community is "in a marriage we don't want out of."
From his perspective, Volpe said, the automotive industry knows that it "absolutely" cannot move from North America, "and so we're not spending any time thinking about how we're going to suddenly become the biggest trading partner of Europe."