HOUSE RESOLUTION 5

(By Delegates Higginbotham, Ellington, Summers, Linville, Hamrick, Atkinson, Barnhart, Dean, J. Jeffries, Phillips, Rohrbach, Steele, Toney and Waxman)

[Introduced January 15, 2020]

Urging support of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

Whereas, The imposition of artificial barriers to free and open trade are harmful to American economic interests; and

Whereas, Together, the United States, Canada and Mexico promote a shared belief in freedom, representative democracy and market principles as recognized in the U.S. Constitution; and

Whereas, A longstanding, close tri-lateral relationship, codified in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), has existed between the United States, Canada, and Mexico for more than 25 years and has proven economically, culturally and strategically important for all parties and this relationship will continue with ratification of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA); and

Whereas, Trade with Canada and Mexico supports nearly 12 million American jobs, and nearly 5 million of those jobs are supported by increased trade generated by NAFTA and these benefits will continue with ratification of USMCA; and

Whereas, Since NAFTA entered into force in 1994, trade with Canada and Mexico has nearly quadrupled to $1.3 trillion, and the two countries buy more than one-third of U.S. merchandise exports; and

Whereas, For 43 states in the United States, Canada and Mexico represent their first or second largest export market and all but one U.S. state count Canada or Mexico as a top three trading partner; and

Whereas, Canada and Mexico are the two largest trading partners for West Virginia with 16 percent of the state’s goods exports going to Canada and another 2.8 percent going to Mexico; and

Whereas, NAFTA has contributed to a 405 percent increase in U.S. agricultural exports to Canada and Mexico; and

Whereas, The modernized USMCA may prove even more beneficial to the agricultural sector than NAFTA and will offer a higher degree of certainty and stability to farmers; and

Whereas, U.S. service exports to Canada and Mexico have tripled, rising from $27.5 billion in 1993 to $91.3 billion in 2017, thanks to new market access and clearer rules afforded by NAFTA which will be continued under USMCA; and

Whereas, Canada and Mexico are the top two export destinations for U.S. small and medium-sized enterprises, more than 125,000 of which sold their goods and services in Canada and Mexico in 2014; and

Whereas, Trade among our North American trading partners is made up predominantly of intellectual property (IP)-intensive goods and services that employ millions of Americans in high paying jobs and generate billions of dollars in economic output; and

Whereas, Many of the IP-intensive goods, services and exchanges through which trade is facilitated in the NAFTA bloc did not exist when the agreement was drafted, and this situation has resulted in uneven and weak IP enforcement; and

Whereas, Stringent enforcement of IP rights has been found to correlate closely with greater household income, Foreign Direct Investment, and Gross Domestic Product; and

Whereas, The IP provisions found in the USMCA are the most comprehensive of any multilateral U.S. trade agreement and are vastly superior to those included in NAFTA; therefore, be it

Resolved by the House of Delegates:

That the House of Delegates hereby applauds the newly-negotiated USMCA; and, be it

Further Resolved, That the House of Delegates urges Congress to approve USMCA in order to ensure continuity in trade among the three North American economic partners; and, be it

Further Resolved, That the Clerk forward a copy of this resolution to the President of the United States; the Chairmen and Ranking members, and all other members of the U.S. Senate Finance and the U.S. House Ways and Means Committees; the members of the Senate and House Advisory Groups on Negotiations;  the U.S. Trade Representative; the U.S. Secretaries of Commerce, State, and Labor; the Director of the Office of Management and Budget; and the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator.