US House of Representatives Passes Updated North American Trade Agreement

On December 19, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted to approve the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), Reuters reports. The trade deal with Canada and Mexico is a bipartisan update of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) from 1994.

 “The passage of USMCA will be enormously beneficial to the manufacturers and distributors of cleaning chemicals, products, and equipment moving forward. Reliable free trade with these two countries is critical to the manufacturing and purchasing of cleaning products and equipment. Similarly, cleaning service providers and their employees will have access to more products, more affordably. ISSA, on behalf of its more than 9,300 members, would like to thank the U.S. House of Representatives for passing USMCA. We hope the U.S. Senate will move quickly to do the same,” said John Nothdurft, director of government affairs for ISSA.

ISSA has been an active member of U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) Coalition, a group of more than 400 U.S. companies and associations that were working to secure congressional approval of the trade agreement. According to the coalition’s website, “The USMCA maintains tariff-free access to Mexico for American exporters. For Canada, it maintains the current tariff-free access for 99% of U.S. products and eliminates some remaining barriers facing U.S. dairy and poultry exports. The agreement preserves and strengthens America’s strong trade ties to Canada and Mexico. Importantly, it includes groundbreaking provisions on digital trade, intellectual property, and other issues that will bring North American trade into the 21st century.”

Additionally, ISSA has signed onto numerous coalition letters, launched an email campaign in its Action Center, and attended coalition meetings urging Congress to pass USMCA.