PRINTER'S NO. 929
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA
SENATE RESOLUTION
No.
153
Session of
2019
INTRODUCED BY PHILLIPS-HILL, SCARNATI, FOLMER AND KILLION,
JUNE 10, 2019
REFERRED TO STATE GOVERNMENT, JUNE 10, 2019
A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Urging the Congress of the United States to ratify the United
States-Mexico-Canada Agreement on Trade.
WHEREAS, The United States and Canada have one of the largest
trading relationships in the world; and
WHEREAS, Canada is the United States' largest export market,
valued at $298 billion ($402 billion Canadian) in goods and
services in 2018, and the United States is Canada's largest
export market, valued at $337 billion ($455 billion Canadian) in
goods and services in 2017; and
WHEREAS, This trade supports 9 million jobs in the United
States and 2.1 million jobs in Canada; and
WHEREAS, In the more than 20 years since the United States,
Canada and Mexico entered into the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA), trade among these countries tripled from $340
billion in 1993 to $1.2 trillion in 2016; and
WHEREAS, North American integration of trade under NAFTA has
helped to make the region more competitive in the world economy
by providing highly integrated and valuable supply chains,
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common rules and harmonized regulations that increase the speed
and global competitiveness of one another's businesses and by
driving investment and embedding value in each country's
economic success, such as creating jobs in North American
communities; and
WHEREAS, Canada and Mexico are the first-ranked and third-
ranked markets, respectively, for agricultural exports from the
United States at an estimated $20.6 billion sent to Canada and
$18.6 billion sent to Mexico, up from $8.7 billion in 1992, the
year that NAFTA was signed; and
WHEREAS, The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA)
comes at a time when the use of tariffs on steel and aluminum,
announced by the United States in March 2018, with a revocation
of trade related waivers in June 2018, resulted in the
imposition of retaliatory tariffs of $12.8 billion from Canada
and $3 billion in retaliatory tariffs from Mexico on products
from the United States; and
WHEREAS, By adopting the USMCA, companies in the United
States will acquire robust copyright protection, 10 years of
data protection for biologic drugs and new protections against
the theft of trade secrets; and
WHEREAS, Under the USMCA, Canada will end its "Class 6" and
"Class 7" programs that have allowed low-priced dairy products
to undersell American dairy products; and
WHEREAS, This change, in addition to other provisions of the
USMCA, will increase market access for United States dairy
products, eggs and poultry in Canadian markets; and
WHEREAS, The USMCA makes a number of significant upgrades to
NAFTA's environmental and labor provisions, incorporates them
into the core of the agreement and makes them fully enforceable,
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which will help level the playing field for United States
workers and businesses; and
WHEREAS, Adoption of the USMCA dramatically enhances
intellectual property (IP) protections; and
WHEREAS, The USMCA contains a modernized, high-standard IP
chapter that provides strong and effective protection and
enforcement of IP rights critical to driving innovation,
creating economic growth and supporting American jobs; and
WHEREAS, The agreement includes a first-of-its-kind chapter
on digital trade that, among other things, ensures data can be
transferred across borders and cracks down on data localization
measures used to restrict where data can be stored and
processed; and
WHEREAS, In signing the USMCA, the three countries have
agreed to make targeted improvements to NAFTA and build on the
successful partnership and the shared competitiveness in the
global marketplace in which free, fair, open and mutually
beneficial trade helps to strengthen the economies of all
countries; therefore be it
RESOLVED (the House of Representatives concurring), That the
Senate of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania urge:
(1) the Congress of the United States to ratify the
United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade by all
countries as soon as possible;
(2) the Presidential Administration of the United States
to renew this country's original waiver on steel and aluminum
tariffs for Canada and Mexico; and
(3) Canada and Mexico to subsequently remove retaliatory
tariffs on all goods and services exported from the United
States;
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and be it further
RESOLVED, That the Secretary of the Commonwealth transmit
copies of this resolution to the President of the United States,
the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the
Majority Leader of the United States Senate, the Consulate of
Canada in Pennsylvania and the Consulate of Mexico in
Pennsylvania.
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