How hateful rhetoric connects to real-world violence |
- Prioritize educator diversity to address racial injustices
- Canada’s vision for a resilient North American trade relationship
- Mexico’s priorities for USCMA in 2022
- USMCA priorities for the United States in 2022
- North American business leaders’ perspectives on USMCA opportunities and challenges
- Making the USMCA work requires careful political commitment: It’s not happening yet
- Lessons learned from the NAFTA
- The USMCA and the way forward for trade policy
- Bold labor provisions a bright light under new North American trade pact
- Mexico’s energy reforms: A blow to realizing the most competitive and dynamic region in the world
| Prioritize educator diversity to address racial injustices Posted: 28 Feb 2022 08:03 AM PST By Seth Gershenson, Michael Hansen, Constance A. Lindsay School teachers have dominated news headlines in the past month. On the heels of the omicron variant surge, many teachers, parents, and school leaders are exhausted. Whether it is adapting on the fly to new safety protocols, finding child care when schools close due to COVID-19 outbreaks or inclement weather, growing external pressure about what should be taught in public schools (and how), or simply finding time to rest and recharge in year two of a seemingly relentless pandemic, everyone involved in the care and education of children is stressed. Teaching has long been a uniquely challenging profession to be sure; the recent perfect storm of a pandemic, an increasingly hostile and partisan political climate, and a general reckoning of racial injustice have only amplified those challenges. All of this has led to widespread concern of a mass exodus from the profession. So far, most of the concern is based on anecdotes and survey results about teachers' plans for the future and not actual attrition from the profession. Still, persistent teacher shortages in certain subjects and locations are very real, as are newly acute shortages of support staff and substitute teachers. Apropos of February being Black History Month and that many Black and other communities of color have been disproportionately harmed by the pandemic, there's also a severe—and longstanding—shortage of Black teachers in this country. As states and districts across the country discuss how to recruit and retain an effective teaching force and begin to prepare for the next school year, they should prioritize having a teaching force that's representative of the broader demographics of public school students in the United States. For reference, just over 50% of students are from nonwhite racial and ethnic backgrounds, compared to roughly 20% of teachers. The current situation—in which schools are flush with federal funds and are developing strategies for pandemic recovery—provides an opportunity to diversify the teaching force that is simply too good to pass up. To make good on this opportunity, we must re-conceptualize diversity and representativeness as two of the many attributes that contribute to the quality of the teaching force. This simple idea is the thesis of our book, "Teacher Diversity and Student Success," which is now available from Harvard Education Press. In the book, we make several arguments about why it's imperative to do a better job of recruiting and retaining a diverse and representative teaching force—the urgency of which has only grown in the wake of the pandemic.
We agree with the many advocacy groups, school systems, and government agencies that have issued calls for increasing educator diversity in recent years. But our call is unique in that it's about more than numbers. We see increased racial representation among the teacher workforce as a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for school success. We also argue for policies that promote a greater integration of teachers across school contexts to ensure all students have access to diverse teachers and for policies that help the majority of teachers who are white to more effectively reach the students of color in their classrooms. These additional objectives are critical; otherwise calls for teacher diversity could inadvertently become a trojan horse leading to segregated teachers for segregated schools. Consequently, we urge policymakers and school leaders to be strategic about how they go about promoting teacher diversity across the workforce. There is a menu of policy options that we should be pursuing across many levels of government to help promote the number and status of individuals of color in public schools and to ensure that all students have access to an array of teachers who are representative of the increasingly diverse country they live in. These options include things like offering more generous federal loan forgiveness policies for teachers, re-examining state policies regarding teacher licensure, and adopting practices that promote more diverse hiring pools at the local level. School systems should track students' exposures to diverse teachers and teacher training programs should seek to provide candidates with student teaching experiences in diverse settings. Naturally, the best set of policies is going to vary based on local needs, but everybody working to support our schools can and should be doing something to promote schools as safe places for teachers and students of color. Whether it's grow-your-own programs in rural areas or teacher residencies for mid-career switchers in urban settings, all efforts can collectively move the needle on this urgent policy goal. Places without a robust stock of diverse talent in their schools may need to get creative; be careful not to overlook paraprofessionals, substitute teachers, coaches, and afterschool club leaders. With evidence showing that even a single exposure to a role model in career-day presentations can help students reimagine their futures, no effort is too small to leave off the table. Only with intentional and sustained focus on diversity and representativeness can we really ensure that all students have equal access to quality teaching that allows them, and our country, to reach their full potential. We should use the opportunity afforded by increased federal funding to make paradigm-shifting progress on the ways in which schools reflect our diversity. Having a diverse and representative teaching force will enable every month to be Black History Month, as Black history is American history and can't be overlooked or shoehorned into a specific subset of the curriculum. Having a racially and ethnically diverse and representative teaching force will ensure that students' diverse backgrounds and experiences are valued, respected, and utilized in the classroom to produce positive outcomes for all students. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Canada’s vision for a resilient North American trade relationship Posted: 28 Feb 2022 07:24 AM PST By Mary Ng
One thing is certain, we will be better off moving forward and were better able to address the pandemic, thanks to the vibrant, unique trilateral trade relationship between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Allow me to share just one striking example: Houston-based company Integrated Viral Protection (IVP). IVP leaped to the fore a few weeks into the pandemic, with an innovative air filtration system. But they couldn't produce this new system alone. That's where our North American Free Trade Agreement (CUSMA) came in. Together with three manufacturing companies — the United States' Dust Free, Canada's Engineering CPR, and Mexico's Instalaciones y Especialidades Metalicas — IVP launched a transcontinental partnership to create the award-winning Biodefense Indoor Air Protection System that traps the COVID-19 virus using high heat. While CUSMA has helped lift the weight of this particular crisis, it was created to address many broader issues. Whether it's climate change, or maintaining North America's competitive advantage, we have the best shot at tackling even the most pressing global challenges when we engage our collective strength, resilience, and innovation. When we look to recovery – one which has sustainability and inclusivity at its core – we will be better equipped to support our workers, businesses, and communities by leveraging the opportunities provided through CUSMA. Thanks to CUSMA, those who have been hardest hit by the pandemic – our nations' small and medium-sized businesses, women, and underrepresented communities — are better positioned to benefit from international trade. On top of this, CUSMA incorporates strong labor and environmental obligations, which will be crucial to our long-term competitiveness. Importantly, its clear dispute settlement mechanisms will help hold us accountable. What's more, CUSMA and the stability it yields for our North American economic partnership — where US$110 million in trilateral trade still happens every hour — uniquely positions our industries to leverage our strengths and collaborate, especially in the fast-growing sectors of the future such as critical minerals and clean-tech, and make real, collective progress to tackle climate change. Whether it’s building electric vehicles or developing world-leading clean hydrogen technologies, our cross-border collaboration can make us a hub for innovation to in turn, export to, and compete with the world. Bolstering our deeply integrated supply chains, and decades-long collaboration through CUSMA, will reinforce our domestic economic security and ensure that the prosperity that flows from international trade begins here, with our North American partnership, and continues to benefit our businesses, industries, people, and communities. Of course, in any partnership, differences will arise, as they have recently with proposed protectionist measures in both the U.S. and Mexico. But we've been here before, and navigating these differences can make our trilateral relationship stronger. Time and again we have met conflict with goodwill and faith and used the mechanisms negotiated between us to maintain rules-based trade. And thanks to this careful work, our companies, workers, and their families are better able to feel secure in their futures. As is the case with fighting COVID-19, our nations will not be able to achieve long-term growth and prosperity without working together. So, let's lean into our strengths, resources, and unique trilateral relationship to strengthen the bridges between our countries and improve the well-being of our peoples and economies. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Mexico’s priorities for USCMA in 2022 Posted: 28 Feb 2022 07:23 AM PST By Tatiana Clouthier
The new USMCA enables Mexico to deepen its productive integration in North America and to benefit from the opportunities it offers to promote trade and investment, which are essential to our economic growth, job creation and above all, to help us reduce long-term regional and income inequalities. Mexico belongs to North America, and its economy has become intertwined with the United States and Canada's economy as we trade and produce together for our regional market and the world. Today, the U.S. and Canada are Mexico's first and fifth largest trading partner, respectively, while the U.S. is the number one foreign investor and Canada ranks third. Likewise, in 2021, Mexico has been the U.S.' number one trading partner and Canada´s third. These numbers reflect that our nations have built an integrated production platform in a diverse number of industries including automobiles, electronics, household appliances, medical devices, machinery, and equipment, among others, as well as in agriculture, which allows the three to complement each other and ensure food security in the region. The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unforeseen challenges to our regional integration as a result of confinements and disruptions in supply chains and put tremendous pressure on all walks of life. The pandemic made us realize how integrated we have become, how dependent on each other we have grown, and the urgency to work together in a coordinated fashion to overcome this major challenge. The pandemic, however, has also unleashed protectionist trends as an apparently easy way out to reduce the vulnerabilities of supply chains and build more resilient economies. However, this is a wrong premise for the world and certainly for North America. Protectionism is an ill-advised trade policy at this moment. Today, we need closer collaboration and deeper integration, more coordination and more dialogue. The region does not need unilateral solutions or isolationist measures. This is why Mexico voiced its deep concern about a recent protectionist proposal introduced in the U.S. Congress that wrongly aims at diverting electric vehicle production to the U.S. by offering discriminatory tax incentives. Such policy proposal is deeply troubling because it directly contradicts the spirit of the USMCA as it intends to divert investment and production of these types of vehicles to the U.S. while it would in fact disarticulate the North American automobile supply chain. Such a move would have dramatic consequences not only for the Mexican auto industry but also for the U.S. since it would reduce the ability of U.S. manufacturing to produce with its most important trading partners, at a very high cost to the U.S. and to North America. The way for North America to be competitive vis-à-vis other regions is by deepening our integration, not by isolating our economies. Our USMCA partnership provides the ideal framework to enhance cooperation to face current and future challenges and to ensure that North America remains as one of the most dynamic and competitive regions in the world. In 2022, Mexico will continue to work with its North American partners to build a strong, resilient, and competitive region. In this way, we will make sure that we offer the prosperity that our people deserve. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| USMCA priorities for the United States in 2022 Posted: 28 Feb 2022 07:22 AM PST By Katherine Tai
Sustained bipartisan engagement here in the United States led to a final, renegotiated USMCA that secured robust levels of support in Congress not seen since the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Dozens of groups, including the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, and state and local leaders across the country ultimately endorsed the new agreement. The overwhelming support for the USMCA creates a strong foundation for the Agreement's durability. Full implementation and enforcement of the USMCA are top priorities for the Biden-Harris Administration, and a key component of a worker-centric trade policy. The Agreement reflects the United States' commitment to raising wages and empowering workers, and it recognizes that workers and producers are central to creating more productive and competitive North American economies.
The labor and environmental obligations, the strongest of any trade agreement, are fully enforceable through new tools and mechanisms that we actively employed in 2021. These include the obligation to identify and ban imports of goods produced with forced labor. This demonstrates North America's leadership to eliminate this practice from our supply chains as a moral imperative and a term of fair economic competition. The groundbreaking Rapid Response Mechanism gives the United States the opportunity to proactively support Mexico's domestic labor justice reform efforts and empower workers in Mexico and the United States at the same time. In May 2021, the United States self-initiated a labor enforcement action under a trade agreement for the first time in history. We resolved another matter that led to severance and back pay for Mexican workers and a commitment to neutrality in future union elections. Our actions are aimed at driving a race to the top in trade and raising regional labor standards. But our commitment to workers and producers does not stop with the Rapid Response Mechanism. Earlier this year, the United States prevailed in the first dispute settlement panel under the Agreement that reviewed whether Canada's allocation of its dairy tariff-rate quotas undermined the ability of American exporters to sell a wide range of dairy products to Canadian consumers. Delivering on this historic win will ensure that American dairy farmers get the full benefit of the USMCA to market and sell their products in Canada – a promise critical to securing the support of agricultural and rural stakeholders for the USMCA. Importantly, the USMCA will help North America meet the challenges of the 21st century and facilitate a robust and just pandemic recovery. The critical changes to the intellectual property provisions will help promote access to affordable medicine for all. The Agreement's conservation commitments will also contribute to North America's sustainability and resilience efforts. The Agreement also confronts the non-market practices of countries outside the region that force our workers and businesses to compete on an uneven playing field. All three countries agreed to important provisions regarding state-owned enterprises and currency manipulation. We also committed to combatting efforts to undermine existing antidumping, countervailing duty, and safeguards measures. In approving the USMCA, Congress delivered on a vision for ongoing implementation and monitoring of the Agreement's terms. The $180 million authorized over four years will support Mexico's labor reforms through technical assistance and enhancing United States’ efforts to monitor and enforce the agreement's environmental obligations. This funding has already led to stronger intelligence sharing and increased capacity to combat illegal take and trade in flora and fauna. It also supported new collaboration with Mexico and Canada on sustainable forest management, sustainable fisheries management, and conservation of marine species. There is a lot to celebrate as we approach the USMCA's second anniversary, but the work of implementation is just beginning. We must use the new tools in the Agreement to effectively resolve our trade disputes and uphold the commitments made to each other. In 2022, we will work together to support regional workforce development and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) while identifying ways to increase the resiliency of our supply chains, combat forced labor, protect the environment, and address the harm from state-owned enterprises. The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to using the USMCA as a model for how trade agreements can put workers and their interests first. In the coming years, it will be critical for the United States, Mexico, and Canada to continue our close cooperation to ensure the USMCA remains a living agreement that delivers inclusive economic growth and broadens our collective prosperity. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| North American business leaders’ perspectives on USMCA opportunities and challenges Posted: 28 Feb 2022 07:21 AM PST By Lance Fritz, Juan Gallardo Thurlow, Victor Dodig
The business communities in all three countries welcome these early gains, but the hard work lies ahead: We must ensure USMCA generates an enduring positive impact on the economies of all our countries to benefit workers, businesses, and customers. Our countries face many headwinds, including economic recovery, climate change, rapidly changing technologies, and the need for greater economic security and resiliency. Fully implementing and enforcing USMCA can help North American leaders tackle these opportunities and challenges together. In support of a more coordinated North American economy, business leaders were pleased to see the release of bilateral frameworks in 2021: The Roadmap for a Renewed U.S.-Canada Partnership and the U.S.-Mexico High-Level Economic Dialogue. In addition, we welcomed early efforts to enhance cooperation and coordination through the first North American Leaders Summit in more than five years.
These engagements send the right signal that the future of the North American economy depends on working together at the highest levels to translate the promise of USMCA into results for citizens across the region. Full implementation and enforcement of USMCA will sustain broad political and stakeholder support for the agreement. Our governments, business stakeholders, and civil society all invested considerable effort, supported the negotiations, and made compromises to reach this historic framework. Yet we are seeing some significant and worrying examples of our three countries developing policies that clearly undermine the objectives and commitments embodied in the agreement. We urge our governments to focus on the opportunity that North America presents to boost our mutual competitiveness and commit to resolving pressing policy challenges by demonstrating shared commitment to USMCA and its provisions. Finally, we call on all three governments to fully harness the USMCA's various committees, including the innovative USMCA Competitiveness Committee, to enhance supply chain resiliency and drive sustainability and innovation in the region. Through USMCA, we have an unprecedented opportunity to strengthen North American supply chains and improve our competitiveness. The private sector stands ready to partner on the development and implementation of an ambitious USCMA and North American agenda to empower our businesses and workers to better compete in the world. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Making the USMCA work requires careful political commitment: It’s not happening yet Posted: 28 Feb 2022 07:20 AM PST By John Weekes
The last few years provided a bruising experience to the then NAFTA partners. President Trump's declaration—that he would "tear up NAFTA" unless it was rebalanced in favor of the U.S.—created an investment chill over Canada and Mexico. Alleging that Mexican and Canadian imports of steel and aluminum were a threat to the national security of the U.S., President Trump slapped punitive duties on these products under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. To Canada, a staunch American ally for over a century, this action was both insulting and economically harmful. To better understand Canada's reaction, we must recall that in 1988 many Canadians believed that it was a mistake for Canada to enter a free trade agreement with the U.S. They argued that it risked undermining Canadian sovereignty and would leave Canada more vulnerable to American trade actions, which were often politically motivated. Canadian supporters of free trade argued that the rules of the trade agreement would protect Canada from unfounded and egregious trade actions from the U.S. In a closely fought national election, the issue of free trade became an important political issue. Supporters of free trade eventually won out, and Canada joined the U.S. in a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA) and became an important partner in constructing the NAFTA a few years later. For 25 years NAFTA benefitted businesses in all three countries. Indeed, many smart companies, their workers, and even whole sectors prospered by using this opportunity to rationalize production to benefit from the relative comparative advantage of different regions in North America. Trade increased dramatically and there were major economic benefits for each of the three partners. However, there were also several problems: Political neglect of the agreement, no real effort to adapt it to changing times, and a serious failure to explain its benefits to the broader community . Today, Canadians are troubled by an emerging pattern of American behavior whereby the U.S. is restricting imports of traditional manufactured and resource products (many of them Canadian, ranging from automotive products to softwood lumber), while calling for more open trade and strengthened rules for high technology products where the U.S. has a comparative advantage and strong domestic support for open competition. These developments leave many Canadians wondering if they can build a secure economic future with a partner focused increasingly on going it alone—taking Canada for granted and seemingly being enamored by managed trade. In addition, Canadians are worried that the U.S. is guarding the American economy through unilateral trade remedy tools rather than with rules enshrined in international agreements. Concern about Chinese competition may lie behind some of these measures, but they often hit other countries more severely than China; this was the case when Canada was subjected to the Section 232 steel tariffs. Canadians have been startled by recent American moves in the automotive sector, an area where Canada and the U.S. pioneered free trade with the Canada-U.S. Auto Pact of 1965. In this particular sector the three North American countries—if they work together—could become the global powerhouse of the new electric, high-tech, automobile industry. Proposals to provide discriminatory tax incentives for American purchasers of vehicles built entirely in the U.S. would stack the deck against investments in Canada and Mexico. Moreover, the Biden administration is set on pushing an egregious interpretation of the automotive rules of origin, invented by the then U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. This would make it much more difficult for automobiles made in Canada or Mexico to meet the test to qualify for free trade treatment. Of course, it is not just the U.S. that needs to act to make the USMCA a success. A new course is needed. To realize the full aspirations of the USMCA, all three partners need to stop fighting each other and figure out a way to collectively win—at home and globally. This will require the U.S., Mexico, and Canada to work together. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Lessons learned from the NAFTA Posted: 28 Feb 2022 07:19 AM PST By Carla A. Hills
Canada and Mexico are currently America's two largest export markets. Our inter-regional trade is up six-fold since the agreement took effect. One-third of our total global trade is with our two NAFTA partners. Today 80 percent of world trade is conducted through global supply chains, and the NAFTA created one of the most vibrant chains. Roughly 14 million jobs depend on our trade and investment with our two neighbors. The vibrancy of our economic bonds created by NAFTA strengthened our overall relationships with our neighbors leading to enhanced cooperation on a range of security issues, the sharing of intelligence, and improved border procedures. The three leaders began to hold yearly summits to discuss areas of potential cooperation. They created the North American Competitive Council comprised of senior representatives from the private sector of each country to provide recommendations on actions the trio could take to strengthen regional competitiveness. In addition, state and local officials began to reach across borders to meet with their counterparts to address issues that would benefits their cities and states. In recent years, these interactions have sharply declined. This past November, President Biden hosted the North American Leaders' Summit (sometimes called the "Three Amigos Summit") for the first time in five years. The North American Competitive Council has not met in more than a decade. To deal with today's challenges, whether it be climate, pandemics, migration, employment, border efficiency, or security, it is critical that we work with our neighbors and strengthen our trilateral relationships. Indeed, we need to take a page from the early post-NAFTA period to strengthen our economic and political relationships not only regionally but also globally. That will require domestic political support. It is ironic, that as the economic benefits generated by the NAFTA have developed, public support for open trade has waned and concerns regarding globalization have grown. Many are skeptical about whether trade puts their job at risk. Few Americans know the benefits that we have derived from the NAFTA and could secure with future trade agreements. Again, the collaboration established in the early post-NAFTA period with our businesses, universities, mayors, and governors, could help correct the knowledge gap and importantly assist with programs to train our workers to secure and excel in 21st century jobs. Many proposals have been made, but the collaboration needed to make them work has been lacking. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| The USMCA and the way forward for trade policy Posted: 28 Feb 2022 07:18 AM PST By Liz Shuler
As president of the AFL-CIO, I am often asked how we came to support the USMCA after opposing the original North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and many subsequent trade deals. To simplify it, NAFTA was written without real input from working people or their unions. Consequently, labor standards were relegated to an unenforceable side agreement. The USMCA, on the other hand, contains strong and enforceable labor provisions—the result of a sustained, authentic dialogue we helped shape. Critically, as a precondition for the agreement, the USMCA required Mexico to adopt a package of labor law reforms designed to strengthen workers' virtually nonexistent rights to organize independent trade unions and bargain collectively. Together, these reforms seek to address Mexico's corrupt system of "protection contracts," where employers sign bogus collective bargaining agreements with illegitimate, undemocratic trade unions that serve the companies' interests. Over the past several decades, the protection contract system has played a fundamental role in keeping Mexican workers' wages artificially low, encouraging offshoring of jobs from the United States and dragging down wages and standards across North America.
Given the real-life harm the protection contract system has caused workers across borders, the USMCA contains a new rapid-response enforcement mechanism that allows the U.S. government to bring trade enforcement cases directly against private employers in Mexico accused of denying workers their fundamental human rights of freedom of association and collective bargaining. Under the new mechanism, Mexican facilities found to be violating workers' rights must take effective corrective actions or face significant financial penalties, including, for repeat offenders, potential loss of access to the U.S. market. The Biden–Harris administration already has used the mechanism twice, resulting in rapid settlements that advanced workers' rights. The USMCA raised the bar on other important labor standards as well. For example, it requires all three countries to adopt and implement bans on the import of goods made with forced labor. In addition, it contains strong rules of origin, particularly in the auto sector, which will require companies to use more North American content in order to qualify for tariff reductions under the agreement. All of these commitments are backed up by an array of monitoring and enforcement mechanisms to ensure all trade partners live up to the terms of the deal. More broadly, the USMCA eliminated various special interest giveaways to multinational corporations, including excessive patent protections that would have made prescription drugs even more expensive for North American workers. In addition, it greatly restricts access to investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS), which corporations have used to challenge basic environmental, public health, and labor protections in all three countries. Despite these advances, the USMCA is far from perfect. By itself, it will not end outsourcing, growing economic inequality or climate change. However, it represents a major improvement over NAFTA and points the way toward a more balanced, worker-centered trade model capable of delivering broad-based economic growth that advances workers' rights. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Bold labor provisions a bright light under new North American trade pact Posted: 28 Feb 2022 07:17 AM PST By Jerry Dias
It is indicative, perhaps, of a change in the mindset of North America's political economy. Our world looks different today than it did during the blustery presidency of Donald Trump. Today, the entire precept of globalization is facing heavy criticism, and for good reason: Footloose capital built more profitable, but highly vulnerable, global supply chains. Despite being a largely status quo agreement, the USMCA managed to break new ground by rewriting the labor conditions of trade. For the first time ever, workers in North America–the collateral damage of "rationalized" continental supply chains–have tools to meaningfully deal with abhorrent worker conditions; the same conditions, ironically, that manifested because of free trade. Unlike NAFTA, which treated workers' rights as a "nice-to-have" (but strictly voluntary), the USMCA brings labor protections into the core text of the agreement. As a result, governments can now file formal disputes in order to resolve alleged violations like other provisions in the deal.
Emboldened by this change in approach, the Centro de Derechos de los Migrantes (CDM), an NGO promoting migrant labor rights, filed a first petition in March of 2021. The petition claims Mexican women faced systemic discrimination in hiring and employment conditions–a violation of USMCA's labor provisions. Added to these new labor protections is a brand new complaint system, known as the Rapid Response Labour Mechanism. This provision targets the most egregious violations of workers' rights, including the denial of free and fair collective bargaining with severe penalties for corporate rule breakers–up to and including a total ban on cross-border exports. This bolsters labor reform efforts introduced by the Mexican government in 2019. This new trade provision is proving to be, at least so far, more than just words on paper. In 2021, the U.S. government twice invoked the mechanism to address serious allegations of vote tampering and worker intimidation at U.S.-owned auto plants in Mexico, including a massive General Motors truck complex in Silao. The added pressure placed on firms to maintain decent and fair labor standards, under threat of trade sanction, is emboldening Mexican workers to organize in defense of their rights, mounting legitimate challenges to Mexico's deeply corrupt and illegitimate "protection" unions. These are still early days in new North American trade relations, and it is difficult to foretell how effective, or resilient, this surge in labor activism will be. Strong progressive, political alignment between President Biden, Prime Minister Trudeau, and President Obrador in support of trade union freedoms is unique and positive–but also potentially transitory. A rash of America-first economic policies, under President Biden's Build Back Better plan, also threatens to upend any political goodwill built up in Post-Trump North America. Under USMCA, new approaches to labor are reason for hope. The question heading into 2022 is whether mobilizing around the rights of workers can transcend the antecedents of profit-driven free trade policy, in a post-pandemic North America. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Mexico’s energy reforms: A blow to realizing the most competitive and dynamic region in the world Posted: 28 Feb 2022 07:15 AM PST By Meghan L. O'Sullivan
Just four years later, Mexico and its policymakers are contemplating energy reforms, which would reverse these gains. Mexico's Congress will soon debate a constitutional amendment supported by current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador that was deemed necessary after Mexican courts challenged the legitimacy of earlier legislation. The president is seeking to restore the dominance of the state in Mexico's energy sector and, in his view, minimize corruption and level the playing field between the state and private companies. The proposed constitutional amendment would shift control of the power sector back to the state-run utility, the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), and move now-independent energy regulators back under the auspices of the state. Under the new rules, CFE would have at least 54 percent of the power market and would no longer have to dispatch the lowest cost power first, but instead would prioritize its own power generation. These changes are proposed in the context of a broader push to favor state-run companies, including Mexico's oil behemoth Pemex, in the energy sector.
The implications of this constitutional "counter reform," if successful, are serious and wide-ranging – and go well beyond Mexico's domestic arena. First, such changes would destabilize Mexico's renewable energy sector and the ability of Mexico to meet its already too-modest climate goals. The prioritization of power produced by CFE over that of private companies is effectively a move to favor fossil fuels over renewable energy. CFE primarily generates power from hydro, nuclear, natural gas, and fuel oil. Most of Mexico's green power is produced by the private sector, which means that it would be dispatched last, despite being cheaper. The prospects of Mexico meeting its climate targets – which the Obrador government declined to revise to be more ambitious at Glasgow – would move from dim to nil as renewable energy suffered this major setback. Mexico's 2012 General Law on Climate Change currently commits the country to generating at least 35 percent of its power with clean technologies by 2024 and to reduce emissions by 30 percent by 2020 and 50 percent by 2050 when compared to 2000. Yet, a 2021 study done by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) assessed that similar changes to those being advocated today would increase Mexico's carbon emissions by 26-65 percent. The proposed constitutional reform would also harm Mexican competitiveness and economic growth. The surge in wind and solar power generation in Mexico since former President Nieto's 2013-2014 energy reforms has been a boon to manufacturing given the importance of energy costs to such industries. CFE's power, which will now be dispatched first, will in most cases be more expensive than the renewable energy generated by the private sector. The same study by the NREL expected a dominant role for CFE in Mexico's power sector would increase electricity generation costs by 32-54 percent and boost the possibility of power outages by 8-35 percent. Moreover, large companies that have been securing power directly from private power plants—many of them relying on renewable sources—would no longer be able to do so and would be forced to turn to the more expensive, less clean power provided by CFE. Higher cost power would make Mexico far less attractive to companies and investors looking for a competitive alternative to basing operations in China amidst increasing tensions between Beijing and the West. Moreover, international companies committed to their own "net-zero" carbon goals would be less interested in establishing operations in a place that would worsen or not improve their carbon footprints. Finally, the proposed constitutional reforms are almost certain to create greater friction in Mexico's relationship with the U.S. and Canada. Most significantly, they are viewed by some to be in violation of the USMCA, in which signatories committed not to favor domestic companies at the expense of foreign investors. The trade pact provides remedies to foreign energy investors in Mexico when fair market competition is undermined; Bloomberg calculates that the reforms would jeopardize more than $22 billion of foreign-owned solar, wind, and other renewable-energy installations. The trade pact does not mention the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change nor the Paris Agreement in the list of agreements to which signatories committed to maintain laws or regulations to fulfill such obligations. But the USMCA does affirm each country's "commitment to implement the multilateral environmental agreements to which it is a party," and the reforms would clearly hamper Mexico's ability to do this. In addition to these potential violations of USMCA, the proposed energy reforms would be a significant setback to the aspirations of the agreement and entail opportunity costs to all by preventing the three countries from deepening their trade and other forms of cooperation related to climate. The vision of the continent being "the most competitive and dynamic region in the world" as articulated by the leaders of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico in 2014 would be hard to realize if Mexico moves determinedly away from the private sector and renewable energy. The American and Canadian governments have both the grounds and a responsibility to urge Mexican policymakers to oppose this constitutional amendment and the general direction of President Obrador's energy reforms. The push to restore the primacy of the state and, as a result, the role of fossil fuels in Mexico's economy has implications for climate, competitiveness, and cooperation that are of direct interest and importance to Mexico's northern neighbors. Both the Biden and Trudeau governments appear to have made this clear to the Obrador administration. Now that the action is shifting to the Mexican Congress with an April 2022 debate and vote looming, so too should the diplomacy of Washington and Ottawa. The implications for the continent's prosperity, competitiveness, and climate are all at stake. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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