Vice President Mike Pence was in Michigan Wednesday to push for a new trade deal between the United States Mexico and Canada replacing the decades old North American Free Trade Agreement.
When President Donald Trump was elected, he said NAFTA was the single worst trade deal in history and immediately went to work replacing it.
Out of that work came the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.
Before Vice President Pence’s speech Wednesday there was a roundtable discussion featuring top executives from the big three auto makers and major auto suppliers in the area. They stressed their worry in the Trump administration pulling out of NAFTA but they wee happy to hear some work is being done towards a new deal.
“I’ve always said in this part of the country, we do two things well,” says Pence, “ We make things and we grow things.”
In Michigan, the manufacturing industry is growing but the Trump administration says it can grow faster, if they can replace NAFTA with the new USMCA deal.
“The time has come for the Congress of the United States to pass the largest trade deal in American history,” says Pence.
The complaints come from loss of jobs to Mexico across all manufacturing but specifically the auto industry. They say companies are incentivized to send production to cheaper labor areas.
“The USMCA will level the playing field and treat the automotive industry right and fair,” says Pence, “It’s going to be a win for American workers and American jobs.”
The Vice President pleaded with the industry leaders on hand to reach out to their congressional leaders to stress their support of USMCA.
“Manufacturing and the automotive industry are the backbone of American manufacturing today,” says Pence.
Afterwards the Vice President said all the deals have been made with Canada and Mexico and now it’s just up to Congress to ratify it and push it through and get the deal done.
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