A top Mexican official Thursday ruled out renegotiating the proposed United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement to address Democratic concerns about labor and pharmaceutical provisions.
“Reopening it is as good as killing it,” said Jesús Seade, Mexican foreign affairs undersecretary for North America.
The Mexican position rebuffs efforts by some Democrats and Speaker Nancy Pelosi who said earlier this week that parts of the agreement should be reopened to strengthen labor enforcement and address the 10-year monopoly that pharmaceutical companies would have in pricing biologic drugs.
Seade, who met with the New Democrat Coalition and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Thursday, told reporters later that he is working to convince U.S. lawmakers that their concerns about labor rights can be addressed without renegotiating the trade agreement. If approved by legislatures in the United States, Mexico and Canada, the trade pact would replace the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. or NAFTA for short.
Read more at Roll Call.
