White House's Navarro to Pelosi don’t blow USMCA as clock runs
Less than two dozen days.
That’s the amount of time left on the legislative calendar for Congress to pass the United States Mexico Canada trade agreement, also known as USMCA, designed to replace NAFTA. While 22 days may seem like plenty of time when so many in the House of Representatives on both sides of the aisle have been optimistic about the agreement, one White House insider is not so sure.
Assistant to the President and Director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro, said on Tuesday’s edition of ‘Bulls and Bears” on Fox Business, that there are “only a few more days left in October in the legislative calendar (and) in November.”
Navarro noted that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the remainder of the House of Representatives are then “back for a few days before Thanksgiving. And this is gonna be a real turkey if Nancy blows this. And I worry about that .”
But late Tuesday night following Navarro's appearance, Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA), the head of the USMCA working group reassured FOX News' Chad Pergram that talks are progressing. "We hit a couple of bumps. But we worked them out," said Neal, "we’re down to a handful of issues."
Congress is set to adjourn for the holidays on Dec. 12. There are only 14 legislative days between now and Thanksgiving, the date by which several groups from U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) have been pushing as an informal deadline to reach a USMCA agreement. Just last Thursday AEM President Dennis Slater wrote a letter to Rep. Neal and the USMCA working group, stressing the need for speed. “While AEM understands that members of the working group are attempting to tackle outstanding concerns with the agreement, we urge you to move forward quickly,” Slater wrote, “Working families, farmers and ranchers, businesses including equipment manufacturers, and all Americans are waiting for Congress to approve the agreement so our entire economy can benefit from the USMCA."
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An earlier version of this story referred to AEM's president as Daniel Slater, not Dennis